BlackBerry(2023)

IFC Films

Release Date: May 12, 2023 | Limited

The story of the meteoric rise and catastrophic demise of the world's first smartphone.

Releases

Original Release | May 12, 2023

Box Office

Results

Opening Weekend US & Canada:
$492,145
Total US & Canada:
$1,476,597
Total International
$571,053
Total Worldwide:
$2,047,650

Director & Top Cast

Matt Johnson
Director

Ethan Eng
Ethan

Technical Specifications

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

Aspect Ratio: 2.00 : 1

Other Details

Country of Origin: Canada

Summaries

Plot Summary

From Wikipedia:In Waterloo, 1996, Research in Motion (RIM) CEO Mike Lazaridis and his best friend and co-founder Douglas Fregin prepare to pitch their "PocketLink" cellular device to businessman Jim Balsillie. Lazaridis is bothered by the buzzing of Balsillie's China-manufactured intercom and fixes it before he arrives. Their pitch is unsuccessful, but after Balsillie is fired from his job, he agrees to work with them if he is made CEO of RIM and given one third of the company. They hesitate, but after discovering that their deal with USRobotics was a malicious attempt to bankrupt them, they bring Balsillie in as co-CEO and give him a third of RIM.Balsillie arranges a pitch for the PocketLink with Bell Atlantic and forces Fregin and Lazaridis to build a crude prototype overnight, which he and Lazaridis take to New York. Lazaridis forgets the prototype in their taxi, leaving Balsillie to attempt the pitch alone. Lazaridis recovers the prototype at the last second and finishes the pitch, and they rebrand the PocketLink as the "BlackBerry".In 2003, Palm CEO Carl Yankowski plans a hostile takeover of the immensely successful RIM, forcing Balsillie to try to raise RIM's stockprice by selling an amount of phones that exceed Bell Atlantic's (now Verizon Communications) network limit behind Lazaridis's back. This crashes the network, so Balsillie poaches engineers from around the world to fix the problem, as well as hiring a man named Charles Purdy as RIM's COO to keep the engineers in line, though this upsets Fregin, who values the casual and fun work environment he and Lazaridis had created. The new engineers fix the network issue under Purdy's strict management, and RIM avoids Yankowski's buyout.In 2007, RIM's upcoming pitch of the BlackBerry Bold to Verizon is thrown into chaos when Steve Jobs announces the iPhone. Balsillie, a lifelong hockey fan, is occupied with trying to purchase the Pittsburgh Penguins, forcing Lazaridis to pitch the Bold with Fregin instead. When it goes poorly, he panics and impulsively promises them the "Storm", a BlackBerry with a touchscreen. As he finally agrees with Purdy's suggestion to outsource the labor of the Storm to China, he insults Fregin during an argument. Fregin later quits RIM as a result.Balsillie becomes nervous when he sees the iPhone's projected sales and tries to arrange a meeting with AT&T's CEO, only to learn that the Penguins sale is being finalized that day. He chooses the Penguins, but they reject his offer after revealing they know of his plan to move the Penguins to Hamilton, which they learned of when Balsillie mockingly invited Yankowski to a Hamilton game and he informed the NHL. The SEC raids RIM after learning that Balsillie hired the engineers in 2003 with illegally backdated stock options, threatening Lazaridis with legal action. Balsillie arrives too late to meet with the CEO, who snubs Balsillie by hinting that AT&T's partnership with Apple is predicated on the fact that data usage has superseded phone minutes as a priority. Balsillie returns to RIM to find that Lazaridis sold him out to the SEC, leaving Lazaridis as the sole CEO of RIM.One year later, the Storms arrive from China, but Lazaridis finds them to be laden with bugs and can hear buzzing when he holds one to his ear. As he begins manually fixing the buzzing phones one by one, the closing titles reveal that the Storms were almost universally inoperable and Verizon sued RIM to cover the financial loss, Lazaridis resigned as CEO in 2012, Balsillie avoided jail, Fregin sold his stock in 2007, making him one of the richest men in the world. At the height of its success, the BlackBerry phone made up 45% of the cell phone market and is now 0% in the present day, with BlackBerry phones no longer being produced.

Storyline

A company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway.