With the latest iPhone now in people’s hands and Google’s annual Android flagship not far behind, it’s a pertinent time to release a film about the once iconic device that paved the way for both.
BlackBerry hasn’t appeared alongside them on shop shelves for years, and any remaining devices were effectively killed off last January when the company behind them ceased support.
It was an undignified end for a gadget that changed the world, one that became not just ubiquitous with boardrooms and offices (including a certain oval-shaped one), but a true fashion statement.
Thrusting it back into the spotlight in 2023 is director Matt Johnson, who hails not far from BlackBerry’s Ontario HQ.
And yet, against all odds, he says he has no history with the world’s first smartphone whatsoever.
“The timeline of the product was one of the main things I was interested in,” the 37-year-old says.
“A film about the late 90s/early 2000s shift from a more analogue world to a more digital world.
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“That’s when I was quite young and a great opportunity to explore that cultural space, all where I grew up.”
Image: Research In Motion was based in Waterloo, Ontario
‘Hacker-style’ nerds who changed the world
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BlackBerry (the film, not the product) picks up in 1996 at tech firm Research In Motion.
At the time, its ragtag crew of engineers are unaware they’re working on perhaps their country’s most famous export since maple syrup.
Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and friend Douglas Fregin (Johnson) suspect their “PocketLink” idea for a phone that does email is good, but lack the business sense to turn concept into reality.
Image: BlackBerry’s president Mike Lazaridis and (below) in the film, played by Jay Baruchel
Image: Pic: National Amusements/Piece Of Magic Entertainment
Johnson says they were interested in solving practical problems, but had “no vision of a cultural revolution”.
Enter the ruthless and opportunistic Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton), who sees enough potential in the pitch to brute force his way into becoming co-CEO and set up a pitch with the US telecoms giant that would become Verizon.
Image: BlackBerry’s co-CEO Jim Balsillie and (below) Glenn Howerton
Image: Pic: National Amusements/Piece Of Magic Entertainment
The film, based on the book Losing The Signal, takes some liberties with the BlackBerry story – and the real players involved have said some portrayals are closer to satire.
Balsillie’s depicted as a hilariously foul-mouthed demon of the boardroom, while Lazaridis and Fregin lead a team of “almost hacker-style” nerds who love video games and office film nights.
What the film undoubtedly nails is the BlackBerry brand’s ascendancy to stardom.
Image: The film presents the RIM team as a ragtag crew, including Lazaridis (left) and Fregin (in headband). Pic: National Amusements/Piece Of Magic Entertainment
Cracking the market
The first device in 1999 had email and two-way paging, with a keyboard and modest monochrome display.
By 2002, calls, texts, and internet browsing were features of an increasingly popular product with business types.
But the game-changing launch of BlackBerry Messenger in 2005 took it truly mainstream, bringing WhatsApp-style encrypted messaging we now all take for granted.
The world’s addiction to typing on the go saw “CrackBerry” named Webster’s Dictionary’s word of 2006.
It was the phone of choice for millions of people, endorsed by celebrities and even the US president.
At its peak, BlackBerry controlled almost half of the global smartphone market.
Image: Anyone who’s anyone wanted a BlackBerry
Apple makes its move
But 2007 heralded the iPhone – and the world would be about to change all over again.
Steve Jobs ruthlessly mocked the BlackBerry’s reliance on a keyboard during the grand unveiling, as observers swooned over the large multitouch display in his hand.
For many analysts, it marked the beginning of the end for BlackBerry.
Image: Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone. Pic: AP
For Johnson, it wasn’t necessarily the iPhone itself that killed the BlackBerry – but its creators’ response to it.
It saw the company hastily assemble a Frankenstein-like competitor which tried to combine a touchscreen with the satisfying clicks of a physical keyboard.
“It’s a keyboard… on a screen… on a keyboard,” is how Baruchel’s Lazaridis pitches it to his engineers, tragically unconvincingly.
The resulting BlackBerry Storm, released in 2008, was a disaster.
Issues with the new touchscreen, which had one enormous button underneath, saw Verizon have to replace all one million devices it sold and claim $500m in losses.
Image: The BlackBerry Storm was a direct attempt to cash in on the excitement around the iPhone
‘How do you do, fellow kids?’
It put the Canadian company on the back foot, and left its executives grappling with an identity crisis as Apple’s trendsetter went from strength to strength.
BlackBerry still had its loyal users, with one Barack Obama among those happily using them for years after.
The company even welcomed Queen Elizabeth II for a visit to its headquarters in 2010.
But by then it was clear the company’s direction had become muddled, and the masses and phone carriers were batting their eyelids in the iPhone’s direction.
BlackBerry had gone from status symbol to “how do you do, fellow kids?” in the blink of an eye
Image: ‘How does one text Philip?’
Blind revolutionaries
Johnson sees BlackBerry’s downfall as a cautionary tale, but also something of a tragic one.
“They set up the scaffolding for a revolution, but then didn’t realise one was about to happen,” he says.
“It wasn’t that the iPhone was just a better product,” says Johnson.
“It had more to do with the vision of a company like Apple compared to Reality In Motion.
“People say they’re part of the ‘Apple ecosystem’ – the brand means more than the products.
“BlackBerry just did not do that and weren’t interested in that.
“And by the end, those original engineers end up so disillusioned and alienated from the thing they built, I don’t think they even believe they built it.”
Image: The moment the iPhone is announced as portrayed in the film. Pic: National Amusements/Piece Of Magic Entertainment
BlackBerry kept chipping away at iPhone-style touchscreen devices, but found itself swimming against a tide made even stronger by the popularity of Android.
In 2016, the firm gave up making phones and transitioned to being a software security business, licensing out the BlackBerry name for other manufacturers to give it a shot.
The last hurrah was 2018’s BlackBerry KEY2 LE from China’s TCL, an awkwardly assembled jack of all trades that unceremoniously stuck a keyboard at the foot of a touchscreen.
It could hardly have been further away from Lazaridis’s original “texts, calls, email” vision for a phone, one which Johnson thinks might yet make a significant return.
Image: It was the future once…
Nostalgia-driven “dumb phones” from Nokia have seen a resurgence as users seek a detox from social media, while newcomers like the Light Phone proudly boast of offering nothing but texts and calls.
“I think if BlackBerry had reverted to that philosophy, they might’ve found success,” he says.
What’s certain is that no company can afford to rest on its laurels in the constant churn of Silicon Valley.
The modern smartphone may be lacking for innovation, but as BlackBerry and iPhone both proved, the future can emerge in no time at all.
BlackBerry releases in UK and Irish cinemas on 6 October.
A man who stalked Strictly Come Dancing judge Shirley Ballas for six years has avoided jail.
Kyle Shaw, 37, got a 20-month suspended sentence and a lifetime restraining order on contacting Ballas, her mother, niece, and former partner.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that he thought Ballas was his aunt and “began a persistent campaign of contact”.
“He believed, and it’s evident from what he was told by his mother, that her late brother was his father,” said prosecutor Nicola Daley.
The court heard there was no evidence he was wrong, and “limited evidence” he was correct.
Ms Daley said Shaw’s messages had accused Ballas of being to blame for the death of her brother, who took his own life in 2003 aged 44.
He also set up social media accounts in his name.
Shaw had pleaded guilty to stalking the former dancer between August 2017 and November 2023 at a hearing in February.
Incidents included following Ballas’s 86-year-old mother, Audrey Rich, while she was shopping and telling her she was his grandmother.
The court heard in messages to Mrs Rich, Shaw had asked: “Where’s my dad?”
Ballas was so worried for her mother’s safety that she moved her from Merseyside to London.
Image: Kyle Shaw outside court on the day of his sentencing. Pic: PA
In October 2020, Ballas called police after Shaw messaged her and said: “Do you want me to kill myself, Shirley?”
Posts on X included one alongside an image of her home address that warned: “You ruined my life, I’ll ruin yours and everyone’s around you.”
Another referenced a book signing and said: “I can’t wait to meet you for the first time Aunty Shirley. Hopefully I can get an autograph.”
The court was told Ballas’s niece Mary Assall, former partner Daniel Taylor and colleagues from Strictly Come Dancing and ITV’s Loose Women were also sent messages.
‘I know where you live’
On one occasion in late 2023, Shaw called Mr Taylor and told him he knew where the couple lived and described Ballas’s movements.
The court heard the 64-year-old TV star become wary of socialising and stopped using public transport.
Prosecutor Ms Daley said: “She described having sleepless nights worrying about herself and her family’s safety and being particularly distressed when suggestions were made to her that she and her mother were responsible for her brother taking his own life.”
Image: Ballas has been head judge on Strictly Come Dancing since 2017. Pic: PA
Shaw cried and wiped away tears as he was sentenced on Tuesday.
The judge said the stalking stemmed from his mother telling him Ballas’s brother, David Rich, was his biological father.
“I’m satisfied that your motive for this offending was a desire to seek contact with people you genuinely believed were your family,” he said.
“Whether in fact there’s any truth in that belief is difficult, if not impossible, to determine.”
Image: Shaw pictured at court in February. Pic: PA
Defence lawyer John Weate said Shaw had been told the story by his mother “in his mid to late teens” and had suffered “complex mental health issues” since he was a child.
He added: “He now accepts that Miss Ballas and her family don’t wish to have any contact with him and, importantly, he volunteered the information that he has no intention of contacting them again.”
Shaw, of Whetstone Lane in Birkenhead, also admitted possessing cannabis and was ordered to undertake a rehab programme.
Gary Glitter has been made bankrupt after failing to pay more than £500,000 in damages to a woman he abused when she was 12 years old.
She sued the disgraced singer, whose real name is Paul Gadd, after he was found guilty of attacking her and two other schoolgirls between 1975 and 1980.
Glitter, 80, was jailed for 16 years in 2015 and released in 2023 but was recalled to prison less than six weeks later after breaching his parole conditions.
A judge awarded the woman £508,800, including £381,000 in lost earnings and £7,800 for future therapy and treatment, saying she was subjected to abuse “of the most serious kind”.
The court heard she had not worked for decades due to the trauma of being repeatedly raped and “humiliated” by the singer.
Image: Glitter was jailed for 16 years in 2015. Pic: Met Police/PA
Glitter was made bankrupt last month at the County Court at Torquay and Newton Abbot, in Devon – the county where he is reportedly serving his sentence in Channings Wood prison, in Newton Abbot.
Richard Scorer, head of abuse law at Slater and Gordon, the law firm representing the woman, said: “We confirm that Gadd has been made bankrupt following our client’s application.
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“As he has done throughout, Gadd has refused to cooperate with the process and continues to treat his victims with contempt.
“We hope and trust that the parole board will take his behaviour into account in any future parole applications, as it clearly demonstrates that he has never changed, shows no remorse and remains a serious risk to the public.”
Glitter was first jailed for four months in 1999 after he admitted possessing around 4,000 indecent images of children.
He was expelled from Cambodia in 2002, and in March 2006 was convicted of sexually abusing two girls, aged 10 and 11, in Vietnam where he spent two-and-a-half years in prison.
His sentence for the 2016 convictions expires in February 2031.
Glitter was automatically released from HMP The Verne, a low-security prison in Portland, Dorset, in February 2023 after serving half of his fixed-term determinate sentence.
But he was back behind bars weeks later after reportedly trying to access the dark web and images of children.
Paul Mescal and Barry Keoghan will play Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in the upcoming Beatles films – with a Stranger Things star also portraying one of the Fab Four.
The two Irish actors will be joined by London-born performers Harris Dickinson as John Lennon, and Joseph Quinn as George Harrison.
The cast for the Sam Mendes project was revealed at the CinemaCon event in Las Vegas, with all four appearing on stage and taking a bow together in Beatles style.
Image: (L-R) Mescal, Quinn, Keoghan and Dickinson appeared together at the announcement. Pic: Reuters
Mendes is making four interconnected films – one from the perspective of each of the band members – and they are all set to be released “in proximity” to each other in April 2028.
It marks the first time The Beatles and the families of John Lennon and George Harrison have granted full life story and music rights for a scripted film.
Playing McCartney is another big role for 29-year-old Mescal, who recently starred in the Gladiator sequel and was nominated for an Oscar in 2023 for Aftersun.
Barry Keoghan – who also got an Oscar nod for The Banshees of Inisherin – will portray the other surviving Beatles member, Ringo Starr.
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Image: Pic: PA
Meanwhile, Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn, who appeared with long hair as Eddie Munson in the fourth series, takes up the role of George Harrison.
Harris Dickinson has the challenge of stepping into the shoes of perhaps the most famous Beatle, John Lennon.
The 28-year-old recently starred in erotic thriller Babygirl with Nicole Kidman and also appeared in satire Triangle of Sadness.
Mendes told the industry audience at CinemaCon there is “still plenty to explore” despite the Beatles’ rise having being well chronicled.