- Aaron Sorkin will not only pen The Social Network sequel, but also direct it in place of David Fincher for Sony Pictures.
- The follow-up is based on The Wall Street Journalโs โThe Facebook Files,โ which โexposed the inner workings of โ and multiple harms caused by โ the worldโs largest social network.โ
- This article will be updated as news surfaces.
In news that will have probably been overshadowed by Denis Villeneuveโs licence to thrill as the next James Bond director, Aaron Sorkinโs longstanding ambition to craft a sequel to The Social Network is finally coming to fruition as Sony Pictures greenlights the project.
According to Deadline, while the feature-length film is being called The Social Network Part II (at least for the time being), insiders indicate it wonโt be a โstraight sequel,โ but rather a follow-up to the 2010 original helmed by David Fincher and adapted for screens by Sorkin himself.
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โThe new film project is in development with Todd Black, Peter Rice, Sorkin, and Stuart Besser producing,โ reports the entertainment publication.
โSorkinโs original screenplay for the new movie explores the story behind The Wall Street Journalโs โThe Facebook Filesโ by Jeff Horowitz, an explosive series of articles published in October 2021 that exposed the inner workings of โ and multiple harms caused by โ the worldโs largest social network.โ
Currently, itโs unclear whether Jesse Eisenberg โ who earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor the first time around โ will reprise his role as Mark Zuckerberg.
Years ago, Aaron Sorkin pledged to only take on The Social Network sequel if David Fincher returned as director. But since then, the Academy Award-winning scribe behind The West Wing, Moneyball, and A Few Good Men has become a director in his own right โ helming Mollyโs Game, The Trial of the Chicago 7, and Being the Ricardos (all based on true events).
The other key motivation for getting the ball rolling? As Sorkin has made abundantly clear time after time, the politics of Facebookโs tech empire has simply become too hard to ignore for him.
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โI blame Facebook for January 6,โ he explained when prompted about how the social media platform (and social media as a whole) has influenced democracy in the years since 2010.โ
When questioned about how specifically, Sorkin replied: โYouโre going to need to buy a movie ticket.โ
โFacebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible. Because that is what will increase engagement. That is what will get you to โ what they call inside the hallways of Facebook โ โthe infinite scroll,โโ he continued.
โThereโs supposed to be a constant tension at Facebook between growth and integrity. There isnโt. Thereโs just growth.โ
โIf Mark Zuckerberg woke up tomorrow morning and realised there is nothing you can buy for $120 billion that you canโt buy for $119 billion dollars, โSo how about if I make a little bit less money? I will tune up integrity and tune down growth.โ Yes, you can do that by switching a one to a zero.
Elsewhere, during his appearance on the Happy Sad Confused podcast, Sorkin stated:
โI do want to see it. And Scott [Rudin] wants to see it. People have been talking to me about it. What weโve discovered is the dark side of Facebookโฆ [former Facebook/Meta Platforms COO Sheryl] Sandberg and [Mark] Zuckerberg seem uninterested in doing anything about it.โ
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He added: โThis all ends up with [Facebook investor Roger] McNamee in a Senate basement secure conference room briefing Senate Intelligence subcommittee members on how Facebook is bringing down democracy. โWe have a huge problem here and something needs to be done about it.โโ
At the time, Aaron Sorkin had been in discussion with McNamee to adapt the latterโs book Zucked โ an โintimate reckoningโ with the catastrophic failures of Facebook as a platform, the ensuing damage to democracy it has caused, and the โeven more unsettling realisation that Zuckerberg and Sandberg [were] unable or unwilling to share McNameeโs concerns.โ
Stay tuned for any relevant updates on The Social Network Part II.
