'It will be graded on a curve': Sorkin on whether The Social Reckoning is a sequel to The Social Network
Aaron Sorkin spent the press tour insisting his Facebook movie isn't a sequel. His own box-office metaphor concedes how everyone will watch it anyway.
The quote comes from Sorkin's interview with TheWrap's Drew Taylor, published October 9 as The Social Reckoning opened exclusively in theaters. Asked about the inevitable comparisons, Sorkin said he has "made my peace" with them:
"It'll be graded on a curve with 'The Social Network.'"
— Aaron Sorkin, to TheWrap
In the same conversation he held the official line — "I've never really thought of this in terms of 'The Social Network'" — before landing on the most honest version of the pitch: this is "a movie about Facebook by the same person who wrote 'The Social Network.'" Sony's publicity has insisted on "not a sequel" throughout.
The case for "not a sequel"
The personnel turnover is real, and it starts at the top. David Fincher didn't direct — Sorkin says he was Fincher's second choice, and that "David has an exclusive deal at Netflix that wouldn't allow him to work at Sony" — though Fincher read the script first and called it "very good."
The cast reset is just as complete. Jeremy Strong plays Mark Zuckerberg because Jesse Eisenberg was offered the role again and declined; Mikey Madison plays whistleblower Frances Haugen, Jeremy Allen White plays Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, and Alexandre Desplat scores in place of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. Of the 2010 film's department heads, only cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth returns.
The structure is new, too: two timelines, the Journal's Facebook Files investigation on one track and Zuckerberg prepping for a congressional hearing across a single morning on the other.
The case that the curve is already grading
Whatever the publicity says, the market treated it as a follow-up to a Best Picture nominee — and then didn't show up. Going into its opening October 9–11 weekend, The Social Reckoning was tracking in the single digits, per Deadline, in a frame won by the $19-million-budget horror movie Other Mommy.
Previously we wrote: Aaron Sorkin's Social Reckoning flop proves The Social Network was David Fincher's movie
The Social Network opened to $22.4 million in October 2010 on its way to eight Oscar nominations and three wins. The curve, in other words, is steep in both directions: nobody expected Sorkin's talky Facebook drama to win a weekend, but the first movie's shadow sets the bar its successor gets measured against — exactly as its writer-director predicted.
Sixteen Octobers separate the two Facebook movies. The first had Fincher, Eisenberg, Reznor, and a $22.4 million opening. The second kept one cinematographer.