Aaron Sorkin Still Hopes to Make The Social Network 2 with Director David Fincher
With so much that’s happened with social media over the past decade, The Social Network writer Aaron Sorkin still hopes to pen The Social Network 2, delving into the controversies Facebook has seen in recent years. The original movie, directed by David Fincher, was an incredible success when it as released in theaters in 2010. Along with earning several prestigious awards and scoring big with critics, the movie was a box office hit as well, grossing $224 million against a $40 million budget.
While The Social Network more or less shows how the social media platform came to be, there’s been a lot that’s happened with Facebook since. That includes the time Mark Zuckerberg famously testified to Congress amid accusations of allowing misinformation to spread on Facebook, which is believed by many to have been a major contributing factor in swaying the 2016 presidential election. As the material is certainly there, Sorkin opened up on his desire to see a sequel during a recent chat on the Happy.Sad.Confused podcast.
“I do want to see it. And [producer] Scott [Rudin] wants to see it,” Aaron Sorkin explains. People have been talking to me about it. What we’ve discovered is the dark side of Facebook.”
Like the original movie, a book about Facebook is also serving as creative inspiration for The Social Network 2. Sorkin based the first movie’s screenplay on Ben Mezrich’s 2009 book The Accidental Billionaires, which details the rise of Facebook from its early days. After reading Roger McNamee’s 2019 book Zucked, which is very critical of Facebook and its impact on society and democracy, Sorkin realized he had another story that would make for a good movie.
“[Facebook CEO Sheryl] Sandberg and Zuckerberg seem uninterested in doing anything about it,” Sorkin said of the concerns McNamee raised over Facebook. “This all ends up with McNamee in a Senate basement secure conference room briefing Senate Intelligence subcommittee members on how Facebook is bringing down democracy. ‘We have a huge problem here and something needs to be done about it.'”
Still, while Sorkin has his inspiration and could hypothetically write the movie, he’s also making it clear that he won’t bother starting work on it unless the movie gets made under one condition.
“I will only write it if David directs it,” he said.
From director David Fincher, The Social Network starred Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake, Armie Hammer, and Max Minghella. Chosen by the National Board of Review as the best movie of 2010, it scored bigtime at the Oscars, earning eight total nominations and winning three – including a Best Adapted Screenplay award for Sorkin. The movie managee to get additional wins for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay at the Golden Globes. You just have to wonder if lightning will be able to strike twice if Sorkin and Fincher end up making the sequel.
Although he’s found great success as a writer, Sorkin has since moved into the director’s chair by helming the new legal drama The Trial of the Chicago 7. You can check out the full interview with Sorkin on the Happy.Sad.Confused podcast.
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