Facebook Is Displeased With Its Portrayal In ‘The Social Network’ And Lobbied For Changes To Script That Weren’t Made
David Fincher’sThe Social Networkis one of /Film’smost anticipated films of the year, and it will soon be upon us. The New York Film Festival is premiering the film next month, but thebuzzfrom those who have seen it already is overwhelmingly positive.
One place that’s not a source of praise for the film, however, is the company on which the film is based. Top Facebook executives have already seen the movie and they aren’t fans, believing it to be loaded with fabrications. Zuckerberg himselfrecently declaredthat the film and the book,Accidental Billionaires, on which it’s based on are “fiction.” Hit the jump for more details on the conflict between Facebook: The Company and Facebook: The Movie.
The New York Timeshas the story about the tensions between the filmmakers and company executives. According to the article, which seems largely based on interviews withThe Social Networkproducer Scott Rudin, Facebook lobbied for substantial changes to the script that were never made:
It’s interesting to speculate what type of changes the company might have wanted, but theTimespiece already mentions one scene that Facebook probably doesn’t want itself associated with:
The film is also sprinkled with scenes of extravagant parties, and it is not clear how authentic they are. As of this week, Mr. Rudin said, one remaining question was to what extent the finished film would include a scene that depicted Sean Parker, the Napster co-founder who was heavily involved with Facebook’s early history, delivering his dialogue while a pair of teenage girls offer partygoers lines of cocaine from bared breasts…Mr. Rudin said his main concern about the scene involved how much could be shown without compromising the movie’s hoped-for PG-13 rating.
One of the sources of controversy is the book on which the film is based. Ben Mezrich’sAccidental Billionaireshas already been shown to behighly inaccurate. Mezrich evidently played up or outright invented many of the “sexy” elements of the book, and even exaggerated Zuckerberg’s basic impetus to start the site. “It’s crazy because all of a sudden Mark becomes this person who created Facebook to get girls or to gain power,” said Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes. “That’s not what was going on. It was a little more boring and quotidian than that.” For his part, Mezrich hasalready made his argumentfor why he portrayed Zuckerberg in this way, saying, “The impetus of everything in college, I think, is to get laid…I know that was my whole purpose in becoming a writer. I think that in general that’s why everybody does everything.”
While I’m confident of Sorkin and Fincher’s ability to craft a gripping story,The Social Networksounds like it will be drawing its facts from one long game of movie “telephone.” Thus far, the company’s strategy towards the film has been to just ignore it. But can it continue to do so for a film that promises to so effectively capture thecultural zeitgeist? We shall soon find out.
