Facebook… the film.

"The Social Network" stars and their real-life counterparts

Variety shared that Columbia Pictures is currently making a film called “The Social Network”… it’s a film about the creation of Facebook by Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a few of his college buddies. Casting for the film is apparently final with Jesse Eisenberg nabbing the central role of Zuckerberg with a boyish face that oozes geek charm. He’s not too big of a Hollywood household name yet, but most people will recognize Eisenberg from the upcoming horror-comedy “Zombieland.”

Other Hollywood names that have signed on include Andrew Garfield who will play Eduardo Saverin, the Facebook co-founder and Zuckerberg’s former BFF. We anticipate the film will be laden with ample drama and “bro”-mance capturing the disintegration of this friendship and Saverin’s falling out with Zuckerberg. It’s likely this plot will be interwoven with lessons about how greed corrupts or something as Facebook goes from humble beginnings as Harvard’s “Hot-or-Not” equivalent to the global social networking site and financial success it is today.

Even Justin Timberlake is involved since he will be starring as Sean Parker, Facebook’s founding president and the Napster co-founder.

Impressive? Um. So-so, bordering on not really. With two leads that are lesser known, and Timberlake who’s definitely talented and popular, but has yet to prove himself in film – don’t count on me to get too excited. And let’s not forget that at the end of the day, it’s still going to be a film about the creation of Facebook. A story that’s forgettable at best, right?

Apparently not.

With David Fincher as director (who’s the mind behind “Seven” and “Fight Club” to name a few) and Aaron Sorkin as the writer… I became a believer that this upcoming Facebook movie has the capacity to be something big. (And it doesn’t hurt that the story is populated with attractive geek chic-type 20 somethings.)

There’s much respect out there for Sorkin as a TV & film writer and it’s hard to imagine that he would ever agree to a project that is only “so-so.” Watch how passionate he is about Facebook’s story in the 2-minute clip below. Apparently it’s the fastest he’s said “yes” to any project so that’s got to count for something:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

“The Social Network” has an incredibly fast-moving production timeline in comparison to typical Hollywood films. The film took less than a summer to come into being, and production will already begin next month in Boston and then go to Los Angeles. No release date is set yet, but I can’t imagine it will be a very long wait since there’s no need for CGI or special effects. Sorkin is penning it as a drama, probably laden with plenty of fame, deception, money, and of course sex.

Zuckerberg’s life is conveniently adaptable to screen since it actually reads like a Hollywood soap opera: A rise to fame from humble beginnings as a super-smart hacker, the transformation of a “Hot-or-Not” site for Harvard women into an online social networking community, and the subsequent negative backlash that always comes with success in the form of relationship conflicts and legal lawsuits (a $16 billion dollar lawsuit from Zuckerberg’s former business partners to be exact). We can also expect that a gorgeous love interest will materialize for the Zuckerberg character of course.

Here’s hoping the Facebook film is a hit since $45 million is going into creating this drama. If all 300 million of Facebook’s users turn out to see the film then it definitely will. I’m just wondering how the Twitter community will react to the film… is it going to be “hot” or not?

But I wouldn’t worry about keeping “The Social Network” on your radar since I’m sure we’ll see Facebook promoting it ferociously as it develops and heads closer to release.

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Tags: entertainment, facebook, social networks

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