Following its world premiere at Berlinale, IFC Films has released the official trailer for the biographical drama “BlackBerry” starring Jay Baruchel, Glenn Howerton, Saul Rubinek, Cary Elwes, Michael Ironside, Rich Sommer, SungWon Cho and Michelle Giroux.
The film tells the true story of the meteoric rise in the early 2000s followed by the catastrophic demise of the world’s first smartphone and is dubbed “a whirlwind ride through a ruthlessly competitive Silicon Valley at breakneck speeds”.
The story covers the business relationship between co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie as their Canadian company Research in Motion released the once-ubiquitous device. It subsequently floundered in legal disputes and lost its market advantage to competitors such as Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy range.
For a time though, the device was one of the most ubiquitous in the world and was fully embraced by businesses along with knockoffs being released by numerous other major manufacturers trying to muscle in on the business phone market share – a sector the BlackBerry essentially created.
Canadian filmmaker Matt Johnson (“The Dirties”) helms the film and co-wrote the screenplay with Matthew Miller based on Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff’s bestselling novel “Losing the Signal”.
“BlackBerry” is set to have its theatrical release on May 12th.
