Finally, a website has become so big and so massive that someone has decided to make a movie based on it. This director happens to be David Fincher. The Social Network is coming out this October and I am actually excited about it.
I read an article in TIME magazine about the company and the owner and had no idea about any of the drama that was involved with the forging of this website. But after reading the article, I most certainly didn't think about it being a movie.
The trailer for this film is great. The music, the clips and even the voice overs are perfect. I am a firm believer that great movies often have great trailers. Some terrible movies have better trailers but, often enough, masterpiece movies have incredible trailers.
Just based on the trailer that I have watched several times, I am going to place my bet that this movie will be great. I don't know why, I just have that feeling.
When I first saw the trailer for No Country For Old Men, I fell in love and knew immediately that the movie was going to be amazing. At that time, nobody even had heard about the movie. And look what happened to it, it won a ton of awards that year. I think this will be the same for The Social Network.
David Fincher has directed some of my favorite movies and he always executes them perfectly. Seven, Fight Club and Benjamin Button were all incredible. I am going to hold the bar at the same level for this movie as well.
The characters look interesting and relatable and the story looks like it will be extremely captivating. I'm pumped. Fuck, I don't even know why but I am kind of excited that Justin Timberlake is in it... should be interesting. And Jesse Eisenberg is always interesting.
I'm going to say that The Social Network is going to be the film of the year. And it's kind of sad that I'm assuming that a movie based on Facebook will be the biggest film of the year.
Do you think a movie about Facebook will do well in the box office? Or Do you think The Social Network will be a good movie in general?
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Comments (25)
...No. It isn't even that impressive, from a technical standpoint.
I kind of want to see it. It's like the documentary that was never made, and I think it's interesting. I don't expect it to be GOOD, I just think the story will be interesting.
Actually, both David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club, Panic Room, Zodiac, Benjamin Button) directing and Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, Charlie Wilson's War) writing will likely carry this movie. Hard to say if it'll be in the Academy Award picture, but if I had to bet one way or another, I'd say we're looking at a classic.
Also Justin Timberlake is very underrated as an actor. Did anyone see how great he did in Alpha Dog? Despite the movie's shortcomings, he was really good in that movie.
Xanga could learn something from it.
I actually learned a little bit about this topic in my Education class last year in school. I wouldn't mind to see it, just to see how it all went down and its affects of it today.
im pretttty excited!
seems like a good one..let's see..
saw the trailer at the movies yesterday, I think it's pretty dumb that people can't seem to think of any good movie topics that they have to resort to a movie about facebook. Thats just my opinion though, I'll probably end up watching it anyways but it just seems dumb.
Hmm comparing No County For Old Men to a movie about Facebook? Idk if I trust your movie critique. But, it looks pretty good.
it looks so stupid.
i'd watch it to mock it, to be perfectly honest, like going to see piranha - you know it is terrible but watch it to talk about how bad it was with friends.
although it has the right qualities to make a sucessful movie - a good director, a known cast, ect - the general fact it is based on facebook will overlook all the other aspects. it won't be taken seriously.
it just proves that we are living in a post-modern world and that we resort to using things such as facebook to create new ideas.
edit: on second thoughts, i won't be watching this - not even to mock. i just watched the trailer and i seriously think this is a fail. i assumed it would be about some college kids meeting on facebook or something like that - a cheesy teen flick - but no, they are attempting to make facebook serious and adult.
the formula for this movie is all wrong. i predict it will do awful.
They must be running out of good ideas.
I'm not sure why people don't think this is a serious movie. Social media has completely revolutionized human communication and has created market forces that no one could have imagined. Our culture is rapidly modifying itself just to keep up with the technology we're creating. It affects law, linguistics, marketing, communications, politics, business, &c., &c. If it keeps a modern civil society running, there's a good chance Facebook has affected it. Facebook's the biggest, baddest, most vicious juggernaut in the field, and a movie talking about the interesting battle to get it where it is should be equally as interesting. Do I think it'll top Inception as "Best Of"? No. Do I think it'll top Inception at the box office? Probably.
@saeglopur - The thing is, Facebook hasn't been around long enough for people to know what its actual place in history will be.
It's like making a biopic on Arnold Schwarzenegger's role as governor. What's the long-term impact? What's the ultimate significance? Is it an actual trend, or just a short burst of something that will fade rapidly and without real consequence (c.f. Betamax)?
If you're going to make a movie about a company that has changed the face of interaction and the Internet, do a Google film. Or, better yet, do a film about ARPANet. That's a story that needs to be told.
@forgottenrevelations@xanga - I think the personal nature of the Facebook story (all the buy-outs and lawsuits) coupled with both the fact that this is a social media network, meaning that people- the audience themselves - share very personal information, and that the founder was such a young entrepreneur makes a Facebook movie a much better drama for today's theater-goers.
I don't think we'll have to wait too long to see that Facebook's legitimization of social media is a real big deal. Even if Facebook disappears in a few years, it'll only be because a similar site managed to topple it. Social media's gotten into our marketing system - Facebook itself might only be pulling an odd billion this year, but it's also drenched in SEO/advertising contracts that run up who-knows-how-much. I mean, it's even become used as permissible evidence in a court of law.
@saeglopur - And Facebook managed to beat out Myspace. It's not a revolutionary idea, just one that picked the right starting point.
In terms of the personal nature of the Facebook story...I don't know. I don't really see that as any more compelling than, say, a story about Amazon or Foundry. It's probably different with people that grew up with Facebook, but frankly, it hasn't been a huge impact on my day-to-day life. I mean, yeah, we all waste time on Facebook...but if it didn't exist, there'd be plenty of other ways of wasting time.
Also, Facebook's revenue model is, for all intents and purposes, complete junk. They try to do what Google does without adequately scoping out the market to determine if they're actually filling a useful niche (not that Google's advertising does, in general). In a rational universe, I couldn't see the company lasting for very much longer before investors catch on to the fact that people that go to Facebook aren't looking for products.
Anyhow, I'm sure there'll be enough people interested in it for the movie to pull in some money. I'm just not convinced that there's a need (or desire) for a movie about a company that's all of six years old.
@forgottenrevelations@xanga - Facebook itself isn't revolutionary, but the current model for social media that's championed is. And, honestly, I'm not lining up for a Myspace movie - I didn't even use the account I created for anything other than music. (How much you use an account probably determines your level of involvement...) On that, I can't say the same for Facebook. I'm several hundred miles away from most of my friends, and there isn't a quicker or easier way to throw a link to a new movie or video game trailer, an article or blog post, &c. than to use Facebook. The oddity here is that this isn't just true for the tech savvy. My dad even uses Facebook fairly often to keep in touch with some more far-flung acquaintances. Hell - my mom even uses it, and it took her about six months to figure out email.
As for the revenue, I wouldn't say it's junk, but "junk." Considering that the marketing game's only growing bigger and bigger, it's all about advertising space and taking up a web presence (whether it works or not). Then, of course, it adds into SEO and online reputation management strategies, which is pretty much invaluable for anyone working in the service industry. It's not pushing real products, and that wasn't the intent. It's all a part of the internet marketing game, which is a very perplexing beast that, real product or not, gobbles money like there's no tomorrow. We all probably think it's fairly fubar (I do, at least), but then again TV ads have been pushing things I'll never buy in my life for decades - and people still throw millions into the prestige of the Super Bowl ad.
(As for Google's ads, by the by, they don't scope much of anything. AdWords can be a serious fool's errand if the person bidding for the keyword doesn't know how to limit their own scope. This is why pay-per-click advertisers should be certified in AdWords.)
I dunno. I'm digging what this movie is doing. It brings back some of that ole French/socialist docudrama-before-"docudrama"-type art thinking.
@saeglopur - Frankly, a Myspace movie would be two hours of flashing backgrounds with stars and ponies overlaid with neon-puce text. In terms of Facebook usage, I use it for two things:
1. Waste time.
2. Get in touch with people (because ironically, they'll respond to Facebook messages faster than if I just emailed them).
For those purposes, it's good. On a general, life-affirming basis, it's just one of eight websites I hit regularly when I'm bored (twenty, really, but webcomics only update at most once a day...). Then again, I fully accept that I grew up when social media was still developing.
The problem I have with the marketing game is that ultimately, it's a giant Ponzi scheme. Companies buy into it (and SEO) because they're afraid that, by not doing so, they'll fall behind. Do they really gain from it? I'm not sure they do. Will they lose if they don't buy into it (and their competitors do)? Probably. The bottom line, though, is that it doesn't add any real value to the company, nor does it really serve to spread the word about the company. I can't speak for the average denizen of the Web, but I pretty much ignore all ads, and have since the days of yore (fifteen-foot tall banner ads lining every possible margin).
With respect to Facebook vs. Google, I'm nominally okay with Google's version of the grand scheme because Google has one thing Facebook doesn't: Massive volume. I'll give Facebook credit for growing extremely quickly, but I don't think it has the right userbase for the approach it's using, much less sufficient volume for it to be a viable long-term strategy.
Movie-wise, we'll probably never see eye-to-eye. I'd much rather get something about a more interesting topic than Facebook (though the fact that the creator isn't involved makes it less annoying), but I suppose it'll be better than the Smurfs.
@forgottenrevelations@xanga - I actually work for a small SEO company and can verify that our clients (read: personal injury lawyers) make a boatload off the upswing in traffic. One attorney in particular has basically built his entire practice off of SEO, and he's moved the firm out of his basement and across two cities because of it. As much as it doesn't seem to work, it does. People (wherever they are) click those ads, use Google like the Yellow Pages, and do anything you could imagine via the internet. Our clients get rich, we get rich, and, apparently, everyone's happy. (I'm certainly not complaining.)
I guess my last thing against Google (who I can't say enough good things about, actually - I'm using Chrome right now): Google Wave. They tried social media, and Facebook tanked 'em like a battleship. I think these two can co-exist, and until something gives, they might just have to get used to it.
And, yes, we don't need a Smurfs movie. Or, at the very least, one that will radically alter and probably destroy any original premise of the cartoon... (Which is communism, right? Blue equals red?)
@saeglopur - Using Google like the Yellow Pages, I can see - I do that myself (though usually for online shopping purposes moreso than Yellow Pages purposes). Facebook, though? Maybe people are used to treating links on the Internet with naive confidence, but I don't think I'd ever trust a standard ad-banner.
Anyhow, you're in that business, so you've got a better perspective than I do.
Google Wave, I think, was doomed to failure from the start. It doesn't provide anything new in terms of collaboration/interaction, instead just looking a bit like an attempt to cash in on existing technologies/trends. I know people that bought into the hype, but I don't think I ever heard anyone actually use Wave for anything after the first week or so.
There's a lot of movies we don't/didn't need. Smurfs, Garfield...if they come out with a Calvin & Hobbes movie, I'm going to actually go frothingly mad. In the case of Smurfs, though...yeah, it's a group of blue people that work together for the common good, share the resources according to need (not going to consider the case of Smurfette), live in what equates to a commune, and are persistently beset by a greedy old capitalist that wants to harvest them to turn into gold. I mean, it's not a bad message, it's just...a bit of an unsubtle undertone.
It will be interesting and well-acted to say the least.
I can see why people would be skeptical over hearing the idea right away, but I think they're being totally closed-minded. I'm actually looking forward to giving it a shot. Still, I do remember the "Across the Universe" trailer being so powerful, when the movie itself didn't turn out to be that impressive--I hope it doesn't turn out to be another trailer fraud. =/
im sure it ruined lives
i personally think that a movie about facebook is the lamest thing ever...even worse than that one french film (my computer is going to have a hissyfit if I type it in french so in english called) the umbrellas of chambourg. But what do I know...I'm just a dumb woman. :p