NEED TO KNOW
Jeremy Strong’s next role may get a lot of likes.
According to Variety, the Succession star is at the top of the list to play Mark Zuckerberg in Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Network Part II, taking over the role from Jesse Eisenberg, who previously portrayed the platform’s founder.
The Sony film is inspired by The Wall Street Journal’s The Facebook Files. Sorkin, who won the 2011 Best Original Screenplay Oscar for the David Fincher-directed original, will take over as director for the project.
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The Social Network explored the origins of the groundbreaking social media platform Facebook, with breakout Eisenberg playing its founder Zuckerberg. The award-winning movie costarred Andrew Garfield as the company’s co-founder Eduardo Saverin, Justin Timberlake as Sean Parker and Armie Hammer in a dual role as the twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who had claimed Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from them.
No other casting details are available, including whether any of Eisenberg’s costars will reprise their roles from The Social Network. Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White have reportedly been circling other lead roles for the sequel.
Eisenberg himself has shared he has no interest in being associated with Zuckerberg. During an interview with BBC Radio 4, the actor and filmmaker spoke out against the CEO of Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly known as Facebook, as he promoted his Oscar-nominated movie A Real Pain.
“I haven’t been following his life trajectory, partly because I don’t want to think of myself as associated with somebody like that,” Eisenberg said in an interview clip the BBC shared on its website. “It’s not like I played a great golfer or something and now I want people to think I’m a great golfer — it’s like this guy that is doing things that are problematic, taking away fact-checking and safety concerns. Making people who are already threatened in this world more threatened.”
As Eisenberg stated, the social platform has dramatically changed since the film’s release. Parent company Meta has issued controversial changes to its content moderation protocols and community standards across Facebook and Instagram. Zuckerberg has become the world’s third wealthiest person, according to Forbes. He attended Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration before Meta agreed to pay $25 million to settle a 2021 lawsuit over Trump’s previous suspension from its platforms over the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riots in Washington, D.C.
The Wall Street Journal’s reporting on Facebook, which will be Sorkin’s source material for the sequel, exposed the inner workings of the platform, leaking internal documents in 2021.
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Fincher, 62, has described the notion of a sequel to The Social Network as “a can of worms” in a 2023 Guardian interview. Sorkin told The Hollywood Reporter back in 2021 that he felt open to collaborating with Fincher again.
“I think what has been going on with Facebook these last few years is a story very much worth telling, and there is a way to tell it as a follow up to The Social Network, and that’s as much as I know,” the West Wing creator said at the time.
