Aaron Sorkin is back on Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Reckoning, and the social reckoning opens this Friday. The film moves from the image-making of The Social Network into disinformation, extremism and division.
Jeremy Strong plays a grown-up Mark Zuckerberg, Mikey Madison portrays Frances Haugen, and Jeremy Allen White plays Jeff Horwitz. Sorkin said the new film is built around the whistleblowing that followed Haugen’s leak of thousands of internal documents to Horwitz in 2021.
Jesse Eisenberg and Mark Zuckerberg
Sorkin said he was responsible for how some people viewed Zuckerberg after The Social Network. He won an Oscar for screenwriting for that film, and Jesse Eisenberg played Zuckerberg in it.
He also said Eisenberg was distressed that teenage boys came up to him and wanted him to sign business cards that said, “I’m CEO, bitch,” the way Mark had it. “Jesse was saying, ‘Wait a second, these people think Mark is a hero in this story and not a tragic hero,’” Sorkin said. “Of course, I’m responsible” and “It wasn’t my intention.”
Frances Haugen and Jeff Horwitz
Haugen said, “When I look at Mark, I view a lot of things about his experience of the world as a tragedy.” She added: “Here’s a person who rose to power when he was 19 years old, surrounded by yes-men for his entire adult life. He’s been able to immediately isolate himself from consequences for 20 years.”
Sorkin also said, “In 2018, engagement was going down, so they tweaked the algorithm.” He added: “That is significant because they knew, they had done plenty of research showing that the things most likely to be reshared are anything that makes you angry – rage bait. That’s what they did, and it worked.”
Vancouver and Broadway
Sorkin was on set in Vancouver in July and said, “I get very nervous when there aren’t four walls.” He added, “I’ve written very few exterior scenes in my life. It is mostly people talking in rooms.”
The movie also sends A Few Good Men back to Broadway when it opens, linking the new chapter to the line “You can’t handle the truth.” Viewers and people following Facebook get a second pass at a story Sorkin says now extends beyond rise and myth into the mechanics of sharing, anger and the whistleblower record that followed.
