So much has happened since we first watched Jesse Eisenberg play a young Mark Zuckerberg as he turned a hotness ranking website into one of the biggest social media platforms to have graced and defaced the internet. But is it time for a sequel to The Social Network? The film’s writer, Aaron Sorkin, thinks so.
When The Social Network ended, we had no idea the part Facebook would play in shaping the subsequent decade. The movie came out so early in the arc of Facebook’s place in society that it didn’t even address its transition to becoming the platform our extended relatives post outdated memes to our walls, let alone its role in one of the most contentious elections in modern history. “Fake news” wasn’t even part of the cultural lexicon yet. Cambridge Analytica and its influence on the 2016 presidential election alone is material enough for its own feature. Maybe Sorkin is right. A sequel to the film that introduced us all to a somehow even more melancholy cover of “Creep” by Radiohead might be ripe for the writing.
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“A lot of very interesting, dramatic stuff has happened since the movie ends with settling the lawsuit from the Winklevoss twins and Eduardo Saverin,” Sorkin told AP Entertainment. I can see it now. The movie opens with the looming pressure of a possible fine to the tune of trillions of dollars after news of its work with Cambridge Analytica broke. Instead of Radiohead, we hear Interpol or Pixies playing in the background over a montage of memes and headlines.
Sorkin didn’t elude to a timeline. After all, he is pretty busy right now, bringing To Kill A Mockingbird to Broadway. The Social Network producer Scott Rudin won’t let it go too long, though. According to Sorkin, Rudin has been consistent in reminding him of the need for a sequel. “I’ve gotten more than one email from him with an article attached saying, ‘Isn’t it time for a sequel?’”
There’s a lot of ground to cover in the history of the company and its founders since 2010 – a lifetime ago by today’s standards.