‘The Social Network’ Part II is happening. It’s an even bigger deal than you think
One of the most prescient movies of the 21st century is getting a sequel – and it couldn't come at a better time
“IT’S MOVIG FASTER than any of us ever imagined it would.” That’s what a manic Mark Zuckerberg (played by Jesse Eisenberg) said in the 2010’s The Social Network. David Fincher’s biopic about the personal – and legal – turmoil around the launch of Facebook in the mid-2000s is a modern classic. Fifteen years later, Zuck’s words have never rung more true as online social media have shaped how we think, feel, shop, date, and most of all . . . vote.
It’s time to reexamine the impact of Facebook had on us – and it seems that The Social Network‘s Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin feels the same way. On June 25, Deadline reported that Sorkin is developing a sequel to The Social Network, with Sorkin acting as both writer and director of the project.
Deadline‘s sources state Sorkin’s movie – titled The Social Network Part II – will adapt Wall Street Journal‘s October 2021 articles “The Facebook Files,” which revealed details indicating that Facebook and its chairman, the Harvard dropout Zuckerberg, knew of the site’s toxic effects on young users and influence over the 2020 election, yet took no actions to address them.
While the project is a direct sequel to The Social Network, the news that Strong will take over from Eisenberg suggests the movie will see its antihero protagonist in a different light, one that wasn’t yet in the zeitgeist when Fincher’s movie opened. But less important to continuity is Part II‘s potential to build on the genius of its predecessor. When Fincher and Sorkin made the first movie, their biggest challenge was convincing 2010-era moviegoers to watch a “period” film set in a not-at-all-distant past. It was when Facebook was still a cool website for college students and teens. A movie about its origins? It didn’t scream “observant sociology epic,” which is what Sorkin and Fincher delivered in the end. How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Facebook? is the actual title of a making-of documentary of The Social Network in the movie’s DVD bonus features.
Strong, should he get the part, will play an older yet not much wiser Zuckerberg. One who has aged out of being a Harvard rebel in a Gap hoodie, now fully cemented as a Silicon Valley billionaire with bizarre hobbies. (Zuckerberg raises and butchers cattle, and practices Brazilian jiu-jitsu.) That’s a character Strong has the muscles to play eerily well; just remember how his Kendall Roy often strained himself trying to exude personality, like when he wore overpriced sneakers in an attempt to impress the heads of an app startup. Zuckerberg’s adoption of a perm and a gold chain is exactly the kind of out-of-touch choices a 21st century oligarch would make trying to ground his image back to Earth.
Sorkin has teased Part II since 2021, when he told The Hollywood Reporter that Facebook’s recent history “is a story very much worth telling.” In April 2024, on an episode of the podcast The Town, Sorkin confirmed he was writing a new movie about Facebook, believing the site was to blame for the January 6 insurrection. “Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible,” he said. “There’s supposed to be a constant tension at Facebook between growth and integrity. There isn’t. It’s just growth.”
Is the world ready for The Social Network Part II? Revisit The Social Network now and you’ll find it spine-chillingly prescient. It’s not just about how social media changed our lives. It encompasses exceptionally modern ideas, from male loneliness to toxic relationships to the foolishness of young people and the myopia of the old (to say nothing of rampant greed). “A million dollars isn’t cool. You know what’s cool? A billion dollars” is the legendary line spoken by Napster founder Sean Parker, played in the movie by Justin Timberlake.
As for The Social Network Part II, it’s hard to imagine this story without David Fincher’s deliberate eye and instinct for tension. Still, Sorkin will try to help us understand what the hell happened these past 15 years, and how to prepare for the next 15 – if we make it that far.
This story originally appeared on Esquire US.
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