Globe and Mail reporter and author Sean Silcoff, Com’92, recently returned from what he described as a “less-than-a-once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” – the red-carpet premier of a movie based on his book.
Silcoff was at the Berlin International Film Festival in February where he saw BlackBerry for the first time. The movie was adapted from Losing the Signal: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of BlackBerry, which he co-wrote with Jacquie McNish.
“One of the things that is exciting about the film is it’s great to see a story we worked so hard on get new life in a different medium and reach a new audience,” Silcoff says. “This is a company that changed the world. The story of BlackBerry’s rise and fall is a classic business tale.”
And what a story it is.
The upstart Canadian company Research in Motion (which eventually changed its name to match its most famous product, BlackBerry) created the smartphone market and changed the way the world communicates. In 2009, BlackBerry had 45 per cent of the U.S. cellphone market. The company was beset by a string of setbacks including a stock options scandal, an expensive patent dispute, and the arrival of the iPhone in 2007 and Android-powered devices soon after, a new competitive threat from which the company never recovered. It no longer makes smartphones.
The movie stars Jay Baruchel (How to Train Your Dragon, Tropic Thunder), Glenn Howerton (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), and Cary Elwes (The Princess Bride, Stranger Things). BlackBerry is on the festival circuit and is scheduled to hit theatres in May.
Silcoff feels the film does a great job chronicling how a group of tech geniuses – led by Mike Lazaridis – partnered with hard-driving business leader Jim Balsillie to build an empire but then have it come crashing down. Silcoff describes Research in Motion executives as great leaders but terrible followers who failed to see the smartphone market they created was changing.
“They were unsuccessful in recognizing the need to evolve. They built a perfect device for an era where batteries got drained quickly and there was limited (download speed). Email and messaging were their payload,” says Silcoff, who wrote for the Queen’s Journal and Golden Words when he was a Queen’s student. “Their first reaction to Apple was this will never work because it uses too much bandwidth and the batteries won’t last long. It didn’t matter. Once consumers had the full Internet in their hands, that’s what consumers wanted.”
The film is garnering positive reviews and publicity in media outlets such as The Independent, Looper, Screen Daily, Variety, and Entertainment Weekly.
“The filmmakers did a great job capturing the essence of the story and some key moments in the history of BlackBerry and they’ve done it in a ridiculously entertaining way that I think really connects with audiences,” says Silcoff. “I think the movie is going to do really well.”
