Aaron Sorkin is writing a new movie that could serve as a sequel to The Social Network.
The Oscar-winning screenwriter broke the news when he was asked during a live-from-D.C. edition of The Town podcast about how Facebook and social media have influenced democracy in the years since his 2010 hit.
“Look, yeah, I’ll be writing about this,” Sorkin told Matthew Belloni and Peter Hamby, after glancing at his publicist for “permission” to talk about the project. “I blame Facebook for January 6.”
When asked why he blames a social media company for a pro-Donald Trump mob storming the U.S. Capitol, Sorkin replied, “You’re going to need to buy a movie ticket.”
Pressed if that means he’s writing this idea specifically as a movie, Sorkin replied, “I’m trying. Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible. Because that is what will increase engagement. That is what will get you to — what they call inside the hallways of Facebook — ‘the infinite scroll’ … There’s supposed to be a constant tension at Facebook between growth and integrity. There isn’t. There’s just growth. If Mark Zuckerberg woke up tomorrow morning and realized there is nothing you can buy for $120 billion that you can’t buy for $119 billion dollars, ‘So how about if I make a little bit less money? I will tune up integrity and tune down growth.’ Yes, you can do that by switching a one to a zero.”
Sources close to Sorkin confirmed Friday that the writer is working on a Social Network-adjacent screenplay, but emphasized the project was early days and there was no studio partner as of yet.
Sorkin was previously working on a Jan. 6 script that ultimately did not move forward. It’s unclear if elements from that effort will find their way into the new script.
Sorkin has previously stated he hoped to eventually write a Social Network sequel about “the dark side” of Facebook, especially if David Fincher would return to direct. “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,” he told THR in 2021. And in 2020, Sorkin told the Happy Sad Confused podcast: “People have been talking to me about [a sequel] because of what we’ve discovered is the dark side of Facebook. Do I want to write that movie? Yeah I do. I will only write it if [David Fincher] directs it. If Billy Wilder came back from the grave and said he wanted to direct it, I’d say I’d only do it with David.”
During The Town podcast, Sorkin was also asked The West Wing could still work as a television show today.
“The show premiered in 1999 and so much of the mail that we got would begin with, ‘I’m a Republican and I don’t agree with the political positions that your characters take,’ but what they appreciated was [the characters’] sense of patriotism, the sense of commitment,” he said. “The show romanticized public service … I don’t know that in today’s climate, you would get the ‘I’m a Republican but.’ I think that they would likely see everything as an attack on what was happening right now.”
Sorkin also warned about that Palestine protesters at the Democratic National Convention in August might lead to the re-election of Trump.
“I hope that students — people who are planning on demonstrating there, and I’m all for demonstrating— I hope they remember that Nixon barely beat Humphrey in 1968, and its very likely the sight of riots at the [DNC convention], turned some people off from Democrats. I hope people especially remember that as complicated and important as the war in Gaza is, this is an election about Trump vs. not-Trump and there is an existential choice there.”
