Full text:

Four years after Steve Jobs’s death, a new movie is reopening a debate over the Apple Inc. co-founder’s legacy.

Mr. Jobs’s allies, led by his widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, say the film “Steve Jobs,” and other recent depictions, play down his accomplishments and paint Mr. Jobs as cruel and inhumane. Ms. Jobs repeatedly tried to kill the film, according to people familiar with the conversations. She lobbied, among others, Sony Pictures Entertainment, which developed the script but passed on the movie for financial reasons, and Comcast Corp.’s Universal Pictures, which is releasing the $33.5 million production on Friday.

“A whole generation is going to think of him in a different way if they see a movie that depicts him in a negative way,” said Bill Campbell, a longtime Apple board member and friend of Mr. Jobs. Mr. Campbell hasn't seen the film.

The movie’s creators, who include “Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle and “The Social Network” screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, say it is within the bounds of artistic license.

The film is based on a best-selling biography of Mr. Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Mr. Jobs cooperated with Mr. Isaacson while he was writing the book, but some friends and former colleagues, including Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook, have criticized it in recent months.

Asked about the movie by “The Late Show” host Stephen Colbert recently, Mr. Cook said, “I think a lot of people are trying to be opportunistic and I hate this.”

People behind “Steve Jobs” say they offered to include Ms. Jobs in the film’s development, but she declined.

“She refused to discuss anything in Aaron’s script that bothered her despite my repeated entreaties,” producer Scott Rudin said in an emailed response to questions from The Wall Street Journal. He said Ms. Jobs “continued to say how much she disliked the book, and that any movie based on the book could not possibly be accurate.”

Ms. Jobs declined to comment for this article.

The Hollywood-Silicon Valley sparring echoes that over “The Social Network,” the 2010 film about Mark Zuckerberg and the rise of Facebook Inc. Facebook sought and won script changes. Mr. Zuckerberg later said the movie “made up a bunch of stuff that I found kind of hurtful.”

“Steve Jobs” arrives amid a broader reassessment of Mr. Jobs. His 2011 death provoked public mourning unusual for a business executive, and Apple has since become the world’s most valuable company by market capitalization. More recent depictions of Mr. Jobs look beyond his achievements at Apple and probe his personal life, including a complicated relationship with his eldest daughter.

In March, Apple Senior Vice President Eddy Cue walked out of a screening of “Steve Jobs: Man in the Machine,” a documentary directed by Alex Gibney. Mr. Cue later tweeted that the film was an “inaccurate and mean-spirited view of my friend.” Mr. Cue also talked to several Hollywood executives about the coming Universal movie, echoing Ms. Jobs’s concerns.

Mr. Gibney said in a statement that his film “certainly wasn’t mean-spirited, just truthful.”

“Steve Jobs,” which stars Michael Fassbender in the title role, is divided into acts focused on the launches of three Jobs products: the Macintosh computer in 1984, a NeXT computer in 1988 and the iMac in 1998. It portrays Mr. Jobs as brilliant but abrasive and focuses on sometimes-contentious relationships with key figures in his life, including co-founder Steve Wozniak, marketing executive Joanna Hoffman, his successor as CEO, John Sculley, and his daughter Lisa Brennan-Jobs.

Mr. Sorkin interviewed people portrayed in the movie, and the finished product differs significantly from Mr. Isaacson’s book. Ms. Hoffman and Lisa Brennan-Jobs were minor characters in the book, for example. “When you’re writing about real people…you have a big responsibility,” Mr. Sorkin said in an interview.

The filmmakers say “Steve Jobs” is intended more as an impressionistic portrait of its subject than a photograph. “The truth is not necessarily in the facts, it’s in the feel,” said Mr. Boyle.

In an emailed statement, Universal Pictures Chairman Donna Langley said, “The film was made with the utmost integrity and we are enormously proud of it.”

Mr. Wozniak, who was paid $200,000 to consult on the film, according to a stolen copy of the budget posted online, said he understands that the movie doesn’t precisely portray real events. “It’s about Jobs and his personality,” Mr. Wozniak wrote in an email. “I feel that it did a great job.”

Mr. Jobs’s allies aren’t comforted by such views. “If they want to make a drama, they shouldn’t do it at somebody else’s expense,” said Mr. Campbell. “He’s not there to defend himself.”

Reviews from the Telluride Film Festival, where “Steve Jobs” screened in early September, were largely positive, but the box-office prospects for an adult drama are challenging at a time when television is packed with them. Sony had projected the movie needed to gross $100 million world-wide to break even, according to a document stolen in a corporate hack.

Among the reviews many in Silicon Valley await is that of Ms. Jobs. Universal offered to show her the film, but only if she signed a nondisclosure agreement forbidding her from discussing it publicly until it opened, said her spokesman. She declined.