The rise and fall of BlackBerry. We’ve read about it time and time again, listened to it endlessly but now you will be be able to watch a movie, simply called “BlackBerry” which details the rise and spectacular fall of the once-ubiquitous device as its Canadian parent company Research in Motion.
A representative for Canadian distributor Elevation Pictures says the film will co-star Glenn Howerton, cast member of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia,” as co-CEO Jim Balsillie, while Jay Baruchel, known for the comedy “Knocked Up,” will play his business partner and company co-founder Mike Lazaridis.
Other cast members include Cary Elwes (“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning,” “Saw”), Saul Rubinek (“Hunters,” “True Romance”), Rich Sommer (“The Devil Wears Prada,” “Mad Men”), Martin Donovan (“Tenet,” “Big Little Lies”), Michael Ironside (“Total Recall,” “Scanners”) and Johnson (“The Dirties,” “Operation Avalanche”).
Now known as Blackberry, the company was founded as RIM by Lazaridis and Doug Fregin in 1984, but took off with the release of the BlackBerry smartphone, with users, loving its full keyboard and BlackBerry Messenger service (BBM).
But after the introduction of Apple’s iPhone and various Android devices, BlackBerry moved too slowly to respond to competitors, resulting in a crushing and humiliating retreat from the market that it helped launch.
Johnson and Miller adapted the screenplay from the bestselling 2015 book “Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry” by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff, reporters at Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail.
“BlackBerry” is financed by XYZ Films which intends to shop the film to global distributors at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.
