The story of the rise and fall of Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM), creators of the BlackBerry, just wrapped filming in Hamilton Tuesday, for a big-screen adaptation.
The movie was adapted from the 2015 book Losing the Signal: the Spectacular Rise and Fall of BlackBerry by journalists Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff.
“This is very exciting. This has been a pinch-me kind of week,” said Silcoff.
“It’s surreal when something you worked so hard on, attracted such buzz, adapted for another medium.”
BlackBerry was a brand of very popular smartphones in the early 2000’s.
The film, also called BlackBerry, stars Jay Baruchel as company co-founder Mike Lazaridis and Glenn Howerton as co-CEO Jim Balsillie.
Silcoff said meeting Howerton was “astonishing.”
“I walked into the room, and there was Jim. It was like meeting Jim Balsillie 15 or 20 years earlier. Young, intense, sharp-eyed and focused.”
“It literally left me breathless for a moment or two.”
BlackBerry will be introduced to buyers at TIFF by XYZ Films, while Elevation Pictures will be distributing it in Canada.
Hamilton Film Office lead, Kim Adrovez, said residents will see some familiar places when watching the movie, which was largely filmed in Hamilton.
An elementary school, Empire Steel, and the First Ontario Centre were some locations the BlackBerry production used, according to Adrovez.
BlackBerry also filmed a few scenes in Waterloo, the city where RIM was born. (CBC)