Christian Bale was the automatic choice to play Steve Jobs in the eponymous biopic of the Apple CEO's life, according to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin.

Sorkin claims that the actor, perhaps best known in more recent times as Batman, didn't even have to audition, he was the first name on a very short list.

"We needed the best actor on the board in a certain age range and that’s Chris Bale," Sorkin told Bloomberg Television. "He didn’t have to audition. Well, there was a meeting."

Leonardo DiCaprio was previously tipped for the role.

The Steve Jobs film will be based on the hugely successful biography by Walter Isaacson, which was released shortly after Jobs' death in 2011. Aaron Sorkin also penned The Social Network, the film based on Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.

It will begin filming in the next couple of months, claimed the screenwriter, with Bale in the lead role. Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later) will direct.

Christian Bale, who has courted controversy in the past with a foul-mouthed rant at a lighting engineer on the set of Terminator Salvation, will have an equally difficult role in Jobs.

"He has more words to say in this movie than most people have in three movies combined,” said Sorkin. "There isn’t a scene or a frame that he’s not in. So it’s an extremely difficult part and he is gonna crush it."

Just don't stand in his eyeline Sorkin if you know what's good for you.