LESS than two weeks after Leonardo DiCaprio broke off talks with Sony to play Steve Jobs, the studio has set its sights back on Christian Bale.

    Sources say Sony is beginning negotiations with “The Fighter” actor, who was originally eyed to play the late Apple Computer co-founder back when David Fincher was in talks to direct.

    The move came after Bale’s negotiations with Fox to star in “The Deep Blue Goodbye” hit a roadblock. Sources say Fox was trying to include sequel options for Bale to tackle the lead role of Detective Travis McGee in what is hoped to be a franchise starter, but the actor balked. Now, talks are ongoing with Bale without sequel options, but even if a deal is reached, the actor would shoot the Jobs project before “Deep Blue Goodbye.”

    Danny Boyle is directing the film, which is based on Walter Isaacson’s book and adapted by Aaron Sorkin. Rather than take a traditional cradle-to-grave approach, Sorkin said that “the movie is going to be three scenes, and three scenes only, that all take place in real time.”

    He added, “Each of these three scenes is going to take place before a product launch — backstage before a product launch. The first one being the Mac; and the second one being NeXT, after he had left Apple; and the third one being the iPod.”(SD-Agencies)