Last night, new details emerged on The Social Network, next year’s Scott Rudin–Aaron Sorkin movie on Facebook’s founding. Most notably, that David Fincher is in advanced talks to direct — a choice which seems completely insane, sort of, until one considers that Fincher is a technical filmmaker whom nobody seems to like personally and Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg is a left-brained programmer who’s nearly as charismatic.
Also making this perfect: Network is based on Ben Mezrich’s upcoming book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal (a fact that was previously alluded to in tweets, but not widely known until last night). The book’s primary source, reportedly, is Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, with whom Zuckerberg has traded lawsuits — meaning Zuckerberg will likely be portrayed as particularly Fincheresque.
Cnet is claiming that producers’ top choices to play Zuckerberg are Michael Cera and Shia LaBeouf, though with the face-replacing technology Fincher pioneered with Benjamin Button, we sort of wish the director would just stick his own head on some kid’s body and play the role himself.
Fincher circles Facebook movie [Variety]
Facebook movie pinning down director, cast [Cnet]
Earlier: The Aaron Sorkin Facebook Movie: A Facebook History