Ashton Kutcher is the greatest strategic mind that has ever lived. Bear with me.
We’re all being Punk’d. You, me, the American film industry, the people of this great nation, everybody, we’re all the marks in the most elaborate long con in history. Kutcher may have appeared to leave MTV’s tentpole prank reality program Punk’d after it went into hiatus in 2007, but he’s only been biding his time. He’s preparing to pull back the curtain on his most complex, audacious hoax yet: the upcoming Danny Boyle-directed Steve Jobs biopic.
That’s right, the most high-profile project currently in production is nothing more than merry trickster Ashton Kutcher’s swan song. It’s the only possible explanation for the many, many complications the picture faced during its embryonic phase. After Kutcher’s own Steve Jobs biopic Jobs limped out of theaters in 2013 (our man Nathan Rabin granted it two stars), he vowed that he’d have his revenge on an ungrateful moviegoing public. And so he devised a scheme to play out over the course of years, ensnaring a complex network of rubes to take part in his put-on. Like the puppet-master might toy with his playthings, Kutcher jerked actors and directors in and out of the game. He spun his web of lies and deceit around David Fincher, Christian Bale, Leonardo DiCaprio, and even tricked Sony into getting on board. The studio eventually wised up and left Universal to play the dupe in Kutcher’s twisted game.
Now, the Kutch has taken his gotcha-good pranking to the next level. The Daily Mail has run photos ALLEGEDLY taken on-set (peep them below and open your eyes, sheeple!) of previously announced Steve Jobs stars Michael Fassbender and Seth Rogen in costume as Apple cofounders Jobs and Steve Wozniak, respectively. I have to admit, I admire Kutcher’s commitment to the joke on this one.
When the day comes at long last that the movie-theater marquees read Steve Jobs, Kutcher’s day of reckoning will be at hand. Just as the theater seats begin contouring to the viewers’ individual butt-prints, Kutcher will burst on to the screen. “You got Punk’d!”, he will scream. “I am the only Steve Jobs you will ever know. Forsake your false Jobs, and hold no Jobs before me.” At this point, he’ll gesture for audience members to look under their seats, where they’ll find a new iPhone, except they’re all locked and only contain that new U2 album. It is then, and only then, that Kutcher will have his vengeance.
