The film tells the story of Facebook's creation, adapting Ben Mezich's book Accidental Billionaires. Entertainment Weekly has the top ten in this year's Black List (which is determined by how many times a scripted is mentioned by the several hundred voters) and Sorkin's script came in with 42 mentions vs. the 47 for The Muppet Man biopic that Christopher Weekes has written The tag line in the Black List (see below) is: "The story of the founders of the social networking website Facebookand how overnight
success and wealth changed their lives." But EW sexes it up as a film combining "fascinating biographical elements of Shattered Glass" — the movie about fabricating magazine writer Stephen Glass — with "the courtroom drama of Kramer vs. Kramer." Which means it will directly tackle the dispute over who started Facebook, and the question of whether CEO Mark Zuckerberg stole the company away from its true creators.

It sounds like someone involved in the now-historic Facebook fight is going to come out looking like a liar. And if there's anything Hollywood's studio managers must crave, it's seeing a fabricator publicly exposed.'

(Pic: Sorkin, via Getty)

Johns Hopkins photographer Will Shepherdson, who shoots for the News-Letter student newspaper, sent us the above and below pics from the set of the forthcoming Facebook movie (click to enlarge). In the Aaron Sorkin-written film, co-founder and CEO Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg, sports such diverse outfits as a light grey Gap hoodie and the darker, logo-less gray hoodie below, also seen in earlier pictures of the filming.

When Eisenberg has his hoodie up and on his head, we'll know that's the scene where he's breaking into the dorm to steal student data while a couple makes out on the sofa.

(Pics: Will Shepherdson/Johns Hopkins News-Letter)

Pacific Coast News has snapped a picture of Timberlake on the set of The Social Network, the Facebook flick also staring Jesse Eisenberg as co-founder and current CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Garfield as spurned co-founder Eduardo Saverin. We've put the shot, above, next to a Jan. 2009 Getty picture of real-life Sean Parker. Timberlake's got the the curly hair down; with some highlights and that wardrobe he might pass for the 'N Sync version of himself from the late 1990s. Click to enlarge.

Timberlake picture by Pacific Coast News

Actors Jesse Eisenberg (Zuckerberg) and Andrew Garfield (Saverin), as well as director David Fincher were on the scene.

So were Twitter users Mary Spiro and Raluca Musaloiu, who stopped to take some photos.

Hm. Kind of looks like Harvard

Jesse Eisenberg (center) is playing Mark Zuckerberg

Andrew Garfield (left) plays forgotten Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin

Mark Zuckerberg built Facebook in fall 2004, so the fall weather is historically accurate

Actual Johns Hopkins students woke to a funny site out their dorm windows

Nice camera

Leaving the dorm…

The guy on the right is probably director David Fincher, who also made Fight Club

Where Justin Timberlake? He plays Facebook's first president, Sean Parker, who wouldn't appear in scenes taking place at Harvard

The university has notified students that Facebook movie The Social Network will be filming on campus next week (reproduced below). The scenes will be filmed almost entirely night, in keeping with the work hours of your typical campus computer nerd-slash-startup founder. Johns Hopkins says the filming won't be disruptive, but we're not so sure: The first student to take a picture of Jesse Eisberg as Mark Zuckerberg and upload it to Facebook might just create a black hole of social media meta-ness that will devour us all. Which is why you should send your pictures here, instead.

UPDATE: Bad news, Johns Hopkins students: A university spokesman wrote to let us know that "Justin Timberlake isn't a part of the Harvard-based scenes being shot here. As I understand it, his character comes into play when the story moves to the West Coast." Since Timberlake plays Silicon Valley investor/entrepreneur Sean Parker, that makes total sense. Sorry to get your hopes up. Jesse Eisberg isn't so bad, though!

[via Blackbook]

Citing a quote from Sorkin himself, The Playlist reports the cast includes Armie Hammer from Gossip Girl; model Dakota Johnson (who is Griffith's daughter); Max Minghella of Agora; and male model Josh Pence. This goes beyond lead actors Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake and Andrew Garfield, who were already confirmed.

A quick look at the cast members, with some thoughts on who some of the new people might be portraying (all pics by Getty Images unless otherwise credited):

UPDATE: We've updated the entires for Hammer, Song and Pence. UPDATE: And Mara.

esse Eisenberg plays founder Mark Zuckerberg. He's got the curly hair and geeky look down well enough.

Justin Timberlake plays early Facebook adviser and Napster co-founder Sean Parker. (Insert Parker photo by Andrew Mager on Flickr.)

Andrew Garfield plays spurned co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

Brenda Song, of the Disney Channel, would appear to be a shoo-in to play Zuckerberg's girlfriend Priscilla Chan. UPDATE: One tipster tells us Chan does not appear in the script but that Saverin is supposed to have an Asian girlfriend, so perhaps Song is taking on that role.

Whomever model Josh Pence is playing, he's definitely not part of the Silicon Valley tech scene. How about the Winklevoss twins, two Olympic rowers from Harvard who accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for Facebook? UPDATE: That part is being played by Armie Hammer (see here). Perhaps Pence could be another Harvard kid?That would seem to work. Pic via Nous Model Management.

Dakota Johnson looks like the kind of girl you'd hope to meet during a night on the town in San Francisco. And Zuckerberg did escort that Victoria's Secret model away from a party there — at least according to author Ben Mezrich.

<pRooney Mara (The Winning Season) looks so downright nice. Zuckerberg's geek girl friend at Harvard, maybe? UPDATE: A tipster suggested Zuckerberg's sister Randi. Good call.Send us your guess.

Max Minghella — no idea who he might play. Thoughts?

Armie Hammer from Gossip Girl. UPDATE: He is playing the Winklevoss twins, Olympic rowers who sued Zuckerberg for stealing their idea for Facebook, according to a tweet from director Richard Kelly. Pic via

Jesse Eisberg kinda works as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, we guess. But how about Michael Cera, instead? With some hair-curling he'd have the look down, and he could have used the role to break free from the "twee teenaged dork" typecast and into the much more interesting "Asperger-level-antisocial teenaged computer nerd" role.

That's Andrew Garfield, of Boy A, as spurned co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

Got a better casting idea? Post it in the comments.

There's no question Mezrich's 14-page book proposal was eyebrow-arching; it featured scenes in which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg ate koala on board the yacht of a Sun Microsystems exec and in which he's targeted by the FBI after hacking into a government website. But the claims have been challenged as factually incorrect, and Mezrich, who has admitted to fabrications in a prior book, has woven more questionable scenes into his final book.

Mezrich may not have much of a handle on the facts, but judging by Sorkin's reaction to his work, and a positive review of Sorkin's first screenplay draft, Mezrich knows how to set up an eminently watchable film. And given Facebook's nerdy history, it was probably inevitable the truth would have to be twisted to accomplish that goal.

[via Vanity Fair]

The video clip above, from YouTube, is grainy, but TechCrunch's Mike Arrington assures readers it's in the final movie. I hadn't seen the film myself, unaware it touched on social networking, but Arrington writes that MySpace takes up a solid five minutes of the movie.

The treatment is brutal. Early in the clip, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson asks Sandler if he actually uses the product. The star's reply: "No, no no. I fuck girls, Tom. I don't have time for that." When he goes on stage, the comic greets the MySpace crowd as "nerds" and then trashes their users: "They say the more friends you have on MySpace the less friends you have in real life." .

Sure, MySpace's competitors are insulted, too. But companies like Silicon Valley-based Facebook are fighting hard to avoid Hollywood; Facebook trashed Ben Mezrich's book about the company, The Accidental Billionaires, and by extension the Aaron Sorkin movie based on that book, calling it inaccurate.

But MySpace is based in Beverly Hills, close to Hollywood, and seems to have a better handle on the big picture: Being on the silver screen, in any context, means you're culturally relevant. Why not embrace the opportunity to make your virtual community a lot more real? (Via TechCrunch.)

As the co-founder of Napster, Parker (pictured) was overshadowed by Sean Fanning, who actually wrote the wildly-popular music-sharing software. Sorkin reportedly brings Parker to the fore, giving him credit for lighting a fire under Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and accelerating the company's growth.

ScriptShadow's Carson Reeves:

And don't get me started on Sean Parker - a character that can become

iconic if the film is made. The brash techy rock star revels in his own

ego, and is a key player in why Facebook is on our computers today

(Parker ended up selling his portion of the company for - I believe - a

couple hundred million dollars).

Zuckerberg, meanwhile, looks comparatively pathetic. In what Reeves calls a "heartbreaking scene," he sits alone ("not one true friend") in a dark room and "friends" the girl who dumped him right before he started Facebook. The movie nevertheless bops along as something of a comedy, thanks to Sorkin's "crazy unknown voodoo screenwriting tricks" and, apparently, jokes involving Facebook use.

Zuckerberg, whose flacks have been trashing the unreleased book on which Sorkin's script is based, may yet discover there are worse things than being depicted having sex in bathroom stalls.

(Pic: Sean Parker, by Andrew Mager)

Michael Jackson's service drew, at its peak, about 2.8 million video and audio streams through the network of content middleman Akamai, versus around 350,000 on a normal day. It was almost entirely Americans watching; apparently the rest of the world was more interested in nuclear disarmament or mass ethnic uprising or whatever.

Back in the U.S., Facebook reported it was handling 6,000 status updates per minute, fueled by more than 300,000 viewers on a joint CNN/Facebook video console. Jackson chatter dominated and slowed Twitter.

In unrelated news, underemployment just pushed the average U.S. workweek to a record low of 33 hours while the jobless rate reached 9.5 percent.

Columbia wants to start production by the end of the year, according to Variety, even though the book on which the film is based won't be released until July 14. So even assuming screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is working on advance manuscripts, he and his colleagues will need to move quickly.

The book is being done by admitted fabricator Ben Mezrich, so they should probably start with the fact-checking.

We hear the New York Times' Brad Stone has been calling around frantically, trying to get hold of a galley himself and spoil Fortune's exclusive. And he may well succeed; the writer outed the author of the anonymous Fake Steve Jobs blog last year with help from his sources in the publishing industry. Mezrich's book is due out July 14.

The media scramble for galleys of Accidental Billionaires just goes to show Facebook remains something of an "it" company in Silicon Valley, even as it grows out of its startup phase and gropes for revenue.

It also proves that respected media outlets have no trouble taking seriously a project created by a busted, fabricating author and adapted for film by would-be crack smuggler, about a money-losing company.

Nor do we, obviously. We'd love to get our hands on said galleys, if only to fact-check them the way we did with Mezrich's comical book proposal. If you can help, please get in touch.

Agents from Beverly Hills' United Talent Agency and literary shop Fletcher & Co. are shopping a book and film deal built around a Facebook update from Lisa Hamilton Day (pictured), a book exec at Dreamworks. Here it is verbatim, as published in an update last week:

"Lisa Hamilton Day's Pomeranian raided Chinese takeout bag overnight, opened and ate a fortune cookie. Her fortune: You have strong spiritual powers, and you should develop them."

This could become "a tween series about Charlotte, the Pomeranian, who uses her newfound superpowers to save her owner's home after said owner loses her job," per Publisher's Weekly. Laugh all you want, but Beverly Hills Chihuahua grossed $145 million.

[Publishers Weekly]

(Pic via)

That would be NY Times TV critic Virginia Heffernan, who totally friended Late Night with Jimmy Fallon's Facebook page, then posted this to the show's Wall:

Please don't think the idea of "social media space" is so boring that you never look at this page again! The show's going to be great. Your Facebook fan and friend, Virginia

We'll leave the issue of whether or not fawning Facebook testimonials present a conflict of interest to the media-ethics-watchdog-types always hounding us for donations outside Johnny Rockets. Instead, let's just rejoice that Fallon has finally found in Heffernan a vocal champion to offset any ego-bruising incurred during the "Jimmy is a douchebag who doesn't deserve this job" incident. We look forward to her review of the Late Night premiere, in which she'll write of how the host holds "a magnetic spell over his audience, every sheepish smile and mischievous glance acting like a pleasurable poke in the ribs that you're instantly compelled to return."

• NYT’s Virginia Heffernan shows her support for Jimmy Fallon’s show. [made-up m3m0ries]

It all reads less like the voice of a British matinee idol than how someone might imagine a British matinee idol might talk. In particular, we had a hard time swallowing all the details about his upcoming shooting schedule, the word "tossers," and—uh—the fact that he'd confide in someone over Facebook that he nailed the teen, taken co-star he's been rumored to have romanced. Of course, there's also the fact that all this comes at the most opportune of moments—as Twilight fades rapidly. All it would take is one deeply twisted special promotions exec with a job on the line to cook up a viral hoax in time to suck the last few drops out of the box office.

Or maybe it's totally real! Consider the evidence:

Boomp3.com

At the Washington DC premiere of The Secret Life Of Bees, a young male fan took a major step forward in his relationship with actress Dakota Fanning. After taking the photo, Billy Walsh asked Fanning if she would be okay with him changing his relationship status on his Facebook profile. Fanning said she wouldn’t mind, but didn’t understand why Walsh would seek her approval. Walsh took a deep breath and explained that Fanning and him have been internet dating for quite some time now and would like to their relationship to the next level. Walsh said, “I’m just started the seventh grade. It’s high time that I settle down with a good girl. A girl like you, Dakota. I can’t be spend all of my junior high years running wild with my bro dawgs looking for a cheap thrills at Stevie Gordon’s pool party. I need to settle down with somebody like you. So, would you mind if it says on Facebook, that ... we’re ... you know ... together?”

Fanning was unsure of how to answer Walsh’s question and wanted to think about it overnight. A feeling of dejection swept over Walsh’s young face. He was about to say something when Fanning interrupted him and said, “It’s not a no, but why ruin a good thing by putting a label on it?”

[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]

*A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

We review all this as introduction to quite possibly the most exciting online development to roll across our virtual desktops in quite some time. Aaron Sorkin, or someone who has gone to a great deal of effort to convince others he is Aaron Sorkin, has emerged from his self-imposed, blogophobic exile to openly embrace the social networking phenomenon known as Facebook. From his introductory letter entitled, Aaron Sorkin & The Facebook Movie:

Welcome. I'm Aaron Sorkin. I understand there are a few other people using Facebook pages under my name—which I find more flattering than creepy—but this is me. I don't know how I can prove that but feel free to test me.

I've just agreed to write a movie for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin and Dustin Moskovitz—three sophmores at Harvard who, in order to meet girls, invented Facebook. I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I've started this page. (Actually it was started by my researcher, Ian Reichbach, because my grandmother has more Internet savvy than I do and she's been dead for 33 years.)

The thoughtful contributions to The Wall alone are enough to wipe away the traumatic memories of that angry, faceless Defaker mob. Facebook Sorkin dutifully responds to every comment, along the way reuniting with old acquaintances ("Michael—You did a lot more than fetch pizza and of course I remember you,") and lending fascinating insights into his ambivalence about the very medium he'll elevate with crackling trademark dialogue into a vehicle that could go on to win Justin Long and Joseph Gordon-Levitt their first Oscars. He writes: "[A]s far as the Internet making us meaner, it does remove a natural censor that we have that commands us to treat people with common respect. An exception apparently are the people posting on this board, whose intelligence, humility and wit are extremely frustrating in that they're disproving my point and that drives me nuts." We really hope this is Sorky. If it's just an impostor, then the Internet has gone and proven his point all over again—not to mention the fact that A Few Good Pokes won't be in theaters anywhere come Christmas 2010.

• Aaron Sorkin & The Facebook Movie [Facebook]