Zuckerberg skewered again on screen in ‘The Social Reckoning’

Sixteen years after being portrayed as a power-hungry start-upper in The Social Network film, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is set for another damning on-screen depiction, this time as a ruthless Silicon Valley overlord.

Hitting screens internationally from Wednesday, the follow-up movie *The Social Reckoning *by Aaron Sorkin delves into the darkest corners of Facebook’s legacy, from spreading hate speech to encouraging political polarisation and undermining democracy.

It is told through the real-life story of Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen, played by Anora star Mikey Madison, and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White), who were the duo behind the 2021* Facebook Files *PR disaster for the company.

The Zuckerberg character, played by *Succession *star Jeremy Strong, is the central figure in the drama, but the heroic Haugen and hard-working Horwitz provide the emotional core of the film.

“This is a whistleblower story. It’s a newspaper story,” Sorkin told AFP and a handful of other entertainment journalists last week.

“In The Social Network I made an attempt to understand his (Zuckerberg’s) motives and get inside his head. I do that less in The Social Reckoning,” added Sorkin, who wrote the script of the first movie.

“I put him in a single situation and have him make a single argument so that by the end of the film he is confronted with the consequences of what he’s done,” Sorkin said.

That situation is Facebook’s refusal to fact-check political advertisements on its platform in the run-up to the 2020 US elections, which ended with President Donald Trump contesting the results and his supporters smashing their way into the Capitol.

Cool kids

Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights President and CEO Maya Wiley (L) and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg attend the “AI Insight Forum” in the Kennedy Caucus Room in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on September 13, 2023, in Washington, DC. Lawmakers are seeking input from business leaders in the artificial intelligence sector, and some of their most ardent opponents, for writing legislation governing the rapidly evolving technology. Picture: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

Critically acclaimed The Social Network in 2010, which went on to win three Oscars, was written by Sorkin but directed by Fight Club maker David Fincher.

It featured a breakout performance from Jesse Eisenberg as a then-student Zuckerberg, a socially awkward mogul-in-the-making who has trouble making friends and is accused of ripping off the idea for Facebook from his peers at Harvard University.

“What I had suggested back in 2010 was that he was a guy uncomfortable with the social structure of college, feeling, as so many people do, that there’s a cool kids table somewhere and he’s not welcome at it,” Sorkin said.

“And so he created his own cool kids table, which he’s now the mayor of.”

In The Social Reckoning, Sorkin does not wrestle with what motivates 42-year-old Zuckerberg as he runs his Meta empire that now includes Instagram, WhatsApp and his faltering parallel online world called the “Metaverse”.

“It can’t possibly be money. There’s nothing you can buy for $120 billion that you couldn’t buy for $119 billion,” Sorkin said.

Jeremy Strong told GQ magazine last month that he had reached out to the Meta supremo via email to say he had approached the role “very seriously” and “with respect”.

He did not reveal Zuckerberg’s response.

On screen, the Zuckerberg character is heard acknowledging his image problem, saying: “I know what people think of me”.

‘Tech bros’ on screen

The American tech billionaire class is inspiring a growing number of films, while also becoming more tightly enmeshed in the business side of Hollywood.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was set to be the subject of new biopic Artificial by Italian director Luca Guadagnino until it was dropped by producers Amazon MGM Studios shortly after Amazon entered into a partnership with OpenAI.

Independent film distributor Neon has stepped in and is set to release the movie next year.

Elon Musk was seen as inspiration for the space-faring main character in black comedy* Mickey 17* starring Robert Pattinson last year, while the Tesla and SpaceX boss is the subject of a new documentary by Oscar winner Alex Gibney.

British comedy writer-turned-director Jesse Armstrong made* Mountainhead *for HBO last year that imagined four tech billionaire villains stuck in a mountain retreat.

Given the deep pockets and powerful lawyers available to Zuckerberg, Sorkin’s script was picked over at studio Sony Pictures’ behest.

The West Wing creator also re-shot two scenes, but has denied legal fears were to blame.

“Under normal circumstances, when you’re doing non-fiction, there is a thorough legal vet that happens. In this case, they decided to hire an outside law firm just to handle this,” Sorkin explained.

“There were some, not many, notes from the lawyers and those notes did not affect the film,” he said.