If they aren’t already, you better believe Facebook is lawyering up, because it looks like a sequel to The Social Network is in the beta development stage. Aaron Sorkin, fresh off writing the controversial (and well-reviewed) To Kill A Mockingbird play dominating Broadway, has revealed that he is more than entertaining the idea of making a Social Network sequel as a response to Facebook’s many recent troubles since his 2010 film ended. Not that Facebook isn’t used to courting negative press in the years since the 2016 presidential election!
In a new interview with the Associated Press, Sorkin revealed that The Social Network producer Scott Rudin has repeatedly toyed with the idea of a follow-up film to their Oscar winning project.
“I know a lot more about Facebook in 2005 than I do in 2018,” Sorkin said in the interview, “but I know enough to know that there should be a sequel. A lot of very interesting, dramatic stuff has happened since the movie ends with settling the lawsuits from the Winklevoss Twins and Eduardo Saverin… I’ve gotten more than one email from [Rudin] with an article attached saying, ‘Isn’t it time for a sequel?’”
Likely one of the headlines attached to Sorkin’s email this past November was this damning New York Times piece which detailed an alleged attempt to cover-up and deny the ongoing infestation of Russian propagators disseminating misinformation and dreaded fake news more than a year after Facebook became aware of the issue.
There is plenty of red meat for an even more sensationalistic film than the 2010 picture for which Sorkin won a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. Although returning to one of your biggest successes might prove challenging. Likely Jesse Eisenberg would be open to reprising the role of Mark Zuckerberg, for which he was nominated for an Oscar. He is, after all, preparing to film Zombieland 2 right now. It’d be a bigger question if the other half of The Social Network’s dream team, director David Fincher, would return. He is currently preparing the long-forthcoming World War Z 2.
However, Sorkin has himself turned out to be a solid director after helming last 2017’s vastly underrated Molly’s Game. With that said, stepping into Fincher’s shoes for a new film focused on Facebook’s tumultuous second decade—one that saw them reach over 2 billion users while simultaneously coming under scrutiny for a litany of scandalous behaviour—would reach a lot more newsfeeds.