Sixteen years after The Social Network became a defining film of the digital age, Aaron Sorkin returns to Facebook’s world with The Social Reckoning, a legal thriller inspired by whistleblower Frances Haugen’s revelations about the platform’s algorithm and its real-world consequences. The Oscar-winning writer/director spoke to The Credits about revisiting familiar terrain, collaborating with Mikey Madison, Jeremy Allen White, and Jeremy Strong and Mikey Madison, and why, despite filming his latest in Canada, he really wanted the film’s narrative to unfold on soundstages and locations in California, using Hollywood crews. Sorkin is eager to support efforts that could keep more film and television production jobs in America.
More of a standalone film than a direct sequel to 2010’s The Social Network, The Social Reckoning finds Sorkin in the director’s chair, taking over for David Fincher. Sorkin, one of the business’s most seasoned writers, has expanded his directorial work, helming Molly’s Game, The Trial of the Chicago 7,and Being the Ricardos.
Inspired by true events, Anora‘s Mickey Madison plays Frances Haugen, a young Facebook engineer who reaches out to Wall Street journalist Jeff Horwitz, played by The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White, to help her blow the whistle on the social network’s most guarded secrets: its algorithm’s connection to users’ radicalization, to name just one of Facebook’s dirtiest secrets. The Social Reckoning also stars Succession‘s Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg, replacing Jesse Eisenberg.
Here, Sorkin tells The Credits about the creatives he couldn’t have realized his vision without and why he’s primed to fight for federal filming incentives that could very well save filmmaking in Los Angeles and beyond.
You wroteThe Social Network, and it became such a pop culture moment. Everybody has their own experience of that, but what was yours?
I have no social media at all. I had a Facebook account while I was working on The Social Network, and again while I was working on The Social Reckoning, so my perspective is a little different from most. Any time over the last 16 years since The Social Networkcame out that Facebook would be in the news again, people would say to me, “You should write another movie about Facebook.” I didn’t understand what they were talking about because I didn’t realize that they had added the newsfeed. That is powered by an algorithm, which means you are getting different news from the news I’m getting, and that was going to become a huge problem. I was experiencing an epic period of writer’s block. I had no ideas at all, and when I don’t have an idea, it’s hard for me to imagine ever having an idea again. Then I met Frances Haugen, and I spent many hours speaking to her over a few months. I also spent many hours speaking to Jeff Horwitz over a few months, but it wasn’t presenting itself as a movie until I asked Frances a simple question: “What was the inciting action? One day you were a Facebook whistleblower; the day before that you weren’t. What happened?” She casually said that a friend had been radicalized by spending too much time on Facebook, and as soon as she told me that, I began to imagine what is now the opening of the film.
There’s a theme of isolation and insular worlds. A great example in The Social Reckoning is how it visualizes the spaces Mark Zuckerberg exists in. Where he’s placed in those spaces is key.
I agree. Most of the time when we see Mark, they’re practicing for his congressional testimony. They go all out, no expense spared, so they set up a Facebook auditorium as a situation room with hot lights, and he’s got lawyers asking him questions right down to what color tie he should wear. When he’s in his office, it’s a very large room, glassed in; he’s behind a desk with headphones on, and he only engages with people if he absolutely has to. Our DP, Jeff Cronenweth, would always shoot him where there was depth in the field. Jeremy Strong is playing Mark Zuckerberg. It’s a thunderous performance. There was very little I had to do to direct him. He’s a very immersive actor who came to set walking and talking as Mark, and so it was tiny things between takes, like, “A little bit faster, a little bit slower, hit that, a little bit hotter, a little bit colder, that’s it.” You give it to Jeremy in five words or less.
Did you have precise conversations with your casting director about what qualities you needed in the performances?
My casting director was Francine Maisler, and I can’t remember ever discussing anyone other than the actors who are in the film. I was looking for a couple of things beyond their skill as actors. They need to have dexterity with the language, and there are a few things that an actor simply can’t act. An actor can’t act smart, and an actor can’t act funny. They have to bring those things with them to the set.
The Social Reckoningreunites you with DP Jeff Cronenweth, who has also worked with David Fincher. What can you tell me about your shorthand and why you knew he was the right guy for The Social Reckoning?
I was my second choice to direct this film. I would have loved for David to direct it. I want David to direct everything, but he has an exclusive deal at Netflix that prohibited him from working at Sony, so he became an enthusiastic cheerleader. He was the first person to read the script. Jeff knew I didn’t want to do a pale imitation of David. I didn’t want to be a Fincher cover band. I was going to have to do the best version of me directing the film. If I have a weakness, it’s visual sensibility, and in filmmaking, the place where art and science meet is cinematography. The same was true of Jon Hutman, our production designer. I like surrounding myself with people who are strong where I’m weak, and people who won’t hesitate to say, “That’s a bad idea. I’ve got a better one.”
A key moment in this is the reconstruction of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. It’s filmed in a very specific way from perspectives we haven’t seen before.
You put your finger on it. I’m always reluctant to talk about it because it’s the end of the film, and I don’t want to spoil it. Most of the news and cell phone footage that we see from January 6 is very wide shots. What I wanted to create wasn’t the size of it; it wasn’t how many thousands of people were there, but what we were finally leading up to in the film. It’s those moments of conflict, hands going on fencing, a window being broken, and a hand climbing up the wall. It was moments of contact. We shot that over two days, and they were our first two days of shooting. God knows I was nervous, but the antidote to that kind of nervousness is preparation. We storyboarded the whole thing; everybody knew exactly what their job was; we had great stunt performers, background actors, and a great AD.
A lot of this is set in California but filmed in Canada. Would you have liked to have filmed more here?
Yes, of course. I’d have loved to have filmed in California. We have plenty of sound stages. I’m really glad you asked this question. We budgeted for three different places. The first was California, where we got the tax credit, so it was the least expensive it could be to shoot in California. We also budgeted for Atlanta and Vancouver, where we shot the film. Still, the movie cost $30 million after Canadian tax incentives, and it would have cost about $10 million to $12 million more in California. California needs to help us out or film production will go away, and it’s the primary identity of the city of Los Angeles.
There is a push for creatives to support the bipartisan MPTERA bill (Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act), a federal legislative proposal to bring production and post-production jobs back to the US. Would you want to get involved?
I would love to get involved with anything that would keep production in California, and honestly, I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t love to get involved with that. Vancouver is a great city, Toronto is a great city, and the crews there are great, but we’d love to shoot on our stages in town with our crews in LA.
It would be a federal one, so other states would benefit too.
That sounds like a real winner, and I would like to see it on the ballot.
Featured image: Director/Writer Aaron Sorkin and Mikey Madison on the set of Columbia Pictures’ THE SOCIAL RECKONING.
