Despite observing this particular piece of casting news on the first day of the fourth month of the year with much trepidation (we initially resigned it to our over-stuffed April Fool’s Day joke drawer), the news that Ashton Kutcher is to play Apple founder Steve Jobs in a biopic of his life – entitled, reservedly, Jobs – is in fact entirely genuine.

Entertainment news outlet Variety outed the Two and a Half Men star in an exclusive report yesterday, also pinning down Joshua Michael Stern (Swing Vote, The Guardian) as director. He will be bringing a screenplay that documents Jobs’ rise from “wayward hippie” to the “revered creative entrepreneur” that went on to be co-founder of Apple. Jobs’ life remains one of the most coveted to bring to the big screen, with this particular effort – funded by Five Star Institute’s Mark Hulme – just one of two in the pipeline. Sony Pictures is also developing its own Steve Jobs picture, based on the best-selling biography by Walter Isaacson.

Reportedly, the film’s shoot will go ahead next month while Kutcher is on a break from Two and a Half Men and will depict Jobs’ creation of the company in his Los Altos, California garage in 1796, his eventual dismissal from the company, and his influential return to the fledgling Apple in 1997. Consider us intrigued.