NEWS/WTF: Fincher To Direct Facebook Film?

So, about a year ago, world renowned screenwriter Aaron Sorkin announced that he was currently working on a screenplay that would be based around Facebook. Well, now the film has a title, and possibly a phenomenal director to take the helm.

Variety is now reporting that Fight Club/Benjamin Button/Panic Room/Zodiac/Se7en (his best film imho)/The Game director David Fincher is now circling, or in their words, in "advanced talks" to add The Social Network to his canon.

Columbia Pictures is in advanced talks with David Fincher to direct "The Social Network," the Aaron Sorkin-scripted film for Columbia Pictures about the formation of Facebook.

The film will focus on the evolution of Facebook from its 2004 creation on the Harvard campus by sophomore Mark Zuckerberg to a juggernaut with more than 200 million members.

For those interested, the creation that they are talking about goes something like this:

The advent of Facebook came about as a spin-off of a Harvard University version of Hot or Not called Facemash. Mark Zuckerberg, while attending Harvard as a sophomore, concocted Facemash on October 28, 2003. Zuckerberg was blogging about a girl and trying to think of something to do to get her off his mind. According to The Harvard Crimson, Facemash “used photos compiled from the online facebooks of nine Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the ‘hotter’ person.” To accomplish this, Zuckerberg hacked into the protected areas of Harvard’s computer network and copied the house’s private dormitory ID images. “Perhaps Harvard will squelch it for legal reasons without realizing its value as a venture that could possibly be expanded to other schools (maybe even ones with good-looking people … ),” Zuckerberg wrote in his personal blog. “But one thing is certain, and it’s that I’m a jerk for making this site. Oh well. Someone had to do it eventually … ” The site was quickly forwarded to several campus group list-servers but was shut down a few days later by the Harvard administration. Zuckerberg was charged by the administration with breach of security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy and faced expulsion, but ultimately the charges were dropped.

After that, he went on to create "thefacebook.com" and from there on, it's all very publicized history.

This news, while interesting, is a bit weird. Personally, I don't see much in the way of cinematic value that would draw Fincher in, and it really doesn't fit his style, at all. He's been known as a darker film maker, as can be seen by his filmography. Even a tale of love that Benjamin Button can be seen as, is, by the directors own admission, a film about death. This also doesn't feature much of a period or style that can feed Fincher's need-to-be-perfect drive. It's really only been about 5 years since the rise of social networking, so it really doesn't fit anything that follows Fincher's style, nor does it warrant this type of super crew that they have, with Sorkin, Fincher, and mega producer Scott Rudin.

Here's my perfect director. Take Steven Soderbergh off of Moneyball, and give him this. Give him a 1-5 million dollar, if even that, budget, and let him go as experimental as the guy wants. THAT is what this film should be like. I'm not saying that Fincher will do a bad job, as I think the film will be amazing, hopefully, with this guys phenomenal direction, but it just seems a bit weird to me.

What about YOU?

Go see something good!