Facebook: The Movie

We all know the story.... Harvard undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg created a website from his dorm room that snowballed into one of the largest phenomena that the world has ever seen. We know of the privacy issues, the ruffling redesigns, and the jobs lost over incriminating photos and status updates. We know that Facebook has risen from humble beginnings in the winter of 2004 to a multinational corporation worth billions of dollars and a daily destination for hundreds of millions of people in a few short years. But how much do we really know about this company and its oft-revered, oft-jeered founding father?

A new big-budget motion picture seeks to answer that question by shedding light on the early days of the Facebook era. The Social Network, a $47 million film starring Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield, Joseph Mazzello, and Brenda Song, is a story of money, greed, and betrayal. Producer Kevin Spacey calls it "a lot funnier that people might expect it to be". The two trailers floating around the web (http://www.thesocialnetwork-movie.com/) make the movie look intense. But of course, how could it not be? 

Facebook has been followed by controversy since the very beginning. Originally founded as thefacebook.com by Zuckerberg with help from fellow students Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin, the site was accused of theft of intellectual property within days of launching. Another group of Harvard students - Divya Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss, and Tyler Winklevoss - had been developing their own social network, HarvardConnection (now known as ConnectU). The ConnectU team allege Zuckerberg stole their idea and the programming code for their website. They filed a lawsuit which settled in 2008 for several million dollars. All will be represented in the movie.

Another student, Aaron Greenspan, had created a portal used around Harvard called houseSYSTEM the year before thefacebook launched. Zuckerberg - admittedly - and his friends - allegedly - were all houseSYSYTEM (now known as CommonRoom) users. Greenspan claims that Zuckerberg copied aspects of his site as well but Zuckerberg denies this. However, Greenspan's site had a feature called the "Universal Face Book", a way of finding other Harvard students online. In 2005, Zuckerberg had "Facebook" trademarked. Although Greenspan admits he did not create the term "face book", he tried to get the trademark revoked as he claims his site used it first. He received a settlement from Facebook, thought to be worth millions of dollars, in 2009.

With a background as he-say, he-say as Facebook's, there is little doubt it will be an interesting movie. It definitely lives up to its tagline: "You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies". Real life hero - or villain - Mark Zuckerberg isn't so excited about seeing himself on the big screen. "I just wished that nobody made a movie of me while I was still alive," the billionaire says. With a quote as sketchy as that, who knows what else seasoned screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has dug up?

Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Zuckerberg, calls his character "insensitive". Others haven't been as nice. Zuckerberg has been called everything from Big Brother to a sociopath. Twilight fans might know Eisenberg from the 2009 Kristen Stewart film Adventureland. He also starred in the hit film Zombieland. According to Wikipedia, veteran actors Shia LaBeouf and Michael Cera were also up for the role of Mark Zuckerberg. While both would have undoubtedly brought flair and had fans flocking to theaters, I personally feel this role deserves an actor who the public doesn't already have such an arrested perception of. I must note, however, that Eisenberg sounds more than a bit like Cera.

Entertainer Justin Timberlake stars as Sean Parker, a co-founder of Napster and the former president of Facebook. Andrew Garfield plays Eduardo Saverin, one of Facebook's co-founders. Garfield will also portray Peter Parker in the 2012 Spider-Man movie. Joseph Mazzello plays Dustin Moskovitz, another co-founder. Mazzello is known for playing Tim Murphy in the first two Jurassic Park films. Brenda Song, of Disney Channel fame, stars as Christy Lee. Armie Hammer plays Cameron Winklevoss and Joshua Pence plays Tyler Winklevoss.

Despite having such a well-rounded cast, this movie will ultimately depend on the very people who made it even thought of as necessary - the people of Facebook - for survival. Here are the facts: there are over 400 million active Facebook users. It is currently the number two website in the world. If Facebook were a country, it'd be the third most populated on Earth. Overall, people around the planet spend over half a trillion minutes per month on the site. It took radio 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million people. It took Facebook two. If this translates to even a small percentage of them deeming it worthwhile to see its origins, this movie will be a colossal success. If not, it may be known as the half-a-billion-user flop. The choice is up to you. Tell me... would you be interested in seeing this movie?