LOS ANGELES: Oscar-winner Christian Bale, best known for his star turn in the blockbuster Batman film franchise, will play Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in an upcoming biopic.

"We needed the best actor on the board in a certain age range and that's Chris Bale," the film's screenwriter Aaron Sorkin said, in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Sorkin, who also wrote the screenplay for the Academy award-winning movie The Social Network about Facebook and its co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, said giving the lead role to Bale was an easy call.

“He didn't have to audition,” said Sorkin, in an interview posted on Bloomberg's website on Thursday, although the writer said “there was a meeting “before the British-born actor was given the part.

“He has more words to say in this movie than most people have in three movies combined,” said Sorkin, who is writing the script for Sony Pictures based on the 2011 biography “Steve Jobs,” by Walter Isaacson.

“There isn't a scene or a frame that he's not in. So it's an extremely difficult part and he is going to crush it,” Sorkin said.

The Apple inventor's storied life already has been rendered on the big screen in last year's Netflix drama Jobs starring Ashton Kutcher, which received lukewarm reviews.

Bale received a best supporting actor Oscar in 2011 for his role in the The Fighter, a biographic film in which he plays the older brother of a washed-up boxer struggling to revive his career.