The forthcoming Aaron Sorkin film about Facebook dubbed “The Social Network” is already getting rave reviews but it’s not the quality of the script or acting that has the Geek Guidebook (GG) anticipating this film. It’s the fact that an entire industry will be focused, even for a brief moment, on the tech world. Everyone will want to know what it’s like starting a company like Facebook from nothing. In fact, this movie may even spur innovation and encourage viewers to look into starting their own innovative company. While the birth of another Facebook may not happen, the next big thing could be…next.
In other words, it is a turning point in the cinema world when Hollywood puts a great writer (Aaron Sorkin of Sports Night and West Wing fame) and big name actor(s) like Justin Timberlake (who is actually not playing Zuck!) into this kind of risky role. While the script, as seen on Scriptshadow, is really sexed up and the dialogue (below) is going to draw the viewer in, the bigger risk is hoping the audience can relate. When you think of Harry Potter’s success, it really comes down to the fact that the audience could relate. Not with magic but with the story of Harry, Hermione, Ron, or one of the other characters. When it comes to The Social Network, it might be hard for the average viewer to really get excited. While Facebook boasts more than 300 million members (and counting!), it remains to be seen if every one of those members heads for the cinemas later this year.
I am personally also quite interested in seeing how Harvard is portrayed. Being affiliated and knowing the internal and external opinions about the school, it will be interesting to see how the administrators who worked with Zuckerberg are shown.
Facebook is still quite a polarizing company. While they have all but dispatched MySpace into the world of Napster and AOL, there are still people out there who are not fans or members (!). It is hard to imagine anyone who is not into the tech world wanting to see this movie. I do hope the film is great and plan on seeing it. I am cautiously optimistic and I assume so are the studios who are gambling on this new type of story.
If the film does far better than Hackers did in its debut, there may be a film about Foursquare, Twitter, or your blog next! See you in the theater, front row center.
The 162-page script includes juicy dialogue between Zuckerberg and ConnectU founders Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendrera. In 2004, ConnectU filed a lawsuit against Facebook, alleging breach of contract and unauthorized use of ConnectU’s source code.
Script excerpt (courtesy Forbes.com):
Mark: Did I use any of your code?
Divya: You used our whole f—-n’ idea!
Here’s some dialogue between Divya and the other ConnectU founders:
Divya: Is this a good guy?
Cameron: We don’t know that he’s not a good guy.
Divya: We know that he took our idea and stole it. We know that he lied to our faces for a month and a half while he–
Cameron: He didn’t lie to our faces.
Divya: He never saw our faces! Fine, he lied to our e-mail accounts and he got himself a 42-day head start because he knows what apparently you don’t, which is that getting there first is everything!
