Developed by Canadian company Research in Motion, the BlackBerry was one of the most popular smartphones on the market in the early 2000s. Elevation Pictures will be bringing the story of the meteoric rise and catastrophic demise of the Blackberry in a new movie starring Jay Baruchel (This Is the End), Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), and Cary Elwes (Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning).
The BlackBerry movie doesn’t have an official release date just yet, but a press release from Elevation Pictures detailing their upcoming releases says that the film will be released in spring 2023. You can check out a first-look image of the movie below.
BlackBerry was directed by Matt Johnson (Operation Avalanche), who also penned the screenplay with Matthew Miller (Nirvana The Band The Show). The film is based on Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s best-selling nonfiction book Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry. The heart of the story deals with the business relationship between co-CEOS Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsille as the company begins to flounder in legal disputes and loses ground to competitors such as Apple and Samsung.
IFC Films acquired U.S. distribution rights for the BlackBerry movie last year, and IFC Films president Arianna Bocco said, “Years before the iPhone hit the market, there was a piece of technology that was so ubiquitous that even Obama couldn’t live without it. ‘BlackBerry’ will give audiences front row seats to the launch of a new age through the eyes of the rowdy tech pioneers that started it all. We’re thrilled to get on this wild ride with Matt Johnson and give the story of the first smartphone the platform it deserves.” Matt Johnson added, “The origin of IFC Films is a dead-ringer match for the Wild West beginnings of the first smartphone. Both exploded from ’90s outsider culture with designs on changing the world. It’s a perfect home for ‘BlackBerry’ and I can’t wait for them to present this insane story to the world.”
My very first cellphone of any kind was a BlackBerry, and although the company officially stopped supporting the products last year, it still sits in a box on my shelf for no reason other than pure nostalgia… and laziness.