The floodgates are about to open on Mark Zuckerberg in the first trailer for Aaron Sorkin‘s The Social Reckoning. “These guys are counting on the next round of congressional testimony to make you likable, Mark,” a character named Charlie (Bill Burr) tells the Facebook founder, portrayed by a particularly chilling Jeremy Strong. “I’m happy to lend a hand, but I think you’re doomed.”
Strong plays Zuckerberg with an edge of age that brings the film up to times for the years that have passed since Jesse Eisenberg played him in The Social Network. They both nailed his arrogance. “People around here understand that when I say ‘no,’ that’s the end of the debate,” he says in a restrained, yet venomous tone. “I’m not two years out of a dorm room anymore, Charlie. Look around.”
The Social Reckoning follows the 2021 leak of internal Facebook documents by whistleblower Frances Haugen, portrayed by Mikey Madison. In the trailer, she meets with Jeremy Allen White‘s Jeff Horwitz, the Wall Street Journal reporter who led the newspaper’s “The Facebook Files” investigation. Their first scene together lifts from an article titled “The Facebook Whistleblower, Frances Haugen, Says She Wants to Fix the Company, Not Harm It.” “I have a hunch you’re not a fan of Facebook,” Madison’s Haugen prefaces in the clip. “But I am. I am here to help Facebook, not hurt it.”
The Social Reckoning is scheduled for release exclusively in theaters on Oct. 9. Sorkin wrote and directed the film, which also stars Wunmi Mosaku, Billy Magnussen, Betty Gilpin, and more.
In a 2021 interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Sorkin said he was interested in creating a film that dug into the “the dark side” of Facebook, saying: “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.”
