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David Fincher To Direct Facebook Movie
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Columbia Pictures is in advanced talks with David Fincher (“Se7en,” “Zodiac,” “Panic Room,” “Fight Club,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button“) to direct “The Social Network” (working title) the movie about the formation of Facebook.
The script written by Aaron Sorkin is based on Ben Mezrich’s upcoming book, “The Accidental Billionaires,” which is set to be released this summer. Mezrich also wrote the book, “Bringing Down the House,” that the recent film “21” was based on.
The film will focus on the evolution of Facebook from its 2004 creation on the Harvard dorm where Mark Zuckerberg – reportedly to be played by either Michael Cera or Shia LeBouef – and his roommates created the immensely-popular social networking website with more than 200 million members.
Rumors circulating about the plot of Mezrich’s upcoming book suggest that Zuckerberg will be portrayed in a negative light. However, Facebook reportedly isn’t too pleased about the book’s debut. Officials from the social networking giant have refused to comment publicly about the book, and have warned employees not to speak to anyone connected to the film’s development.
Here’s the summary of Mezrich’s latest book “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal“:
Eduardo Saverin and Mark Zuckerberg were Harvard undergraduates and best friends–outsiders at a school filled with polished prep-school grads and long-time legacies. They shared both academic brilliance in math and a geeky awkwardness with women.
Eduardo figured their ticket to social acceptance–and sexual success–was getting invited to join one of the university’s Final Clubs, a constellation of elite societies that had groomed generations of the most powerful men in the world and ranked on top of the inflexible hierarchy at Harvard. Mark, with less of an interest in what the campus alpha males thought of him, happened to be a computer genius of the first order. Which he used to find a more direct route to social stardom: one lonely night, Mark hacked into the university’s computer system, creating a ratable database of all the female students on campus–and subsequently crashing the university’s servers and nearly getting himself kicked out of school. In that moment, in his Harvard dorm room, the framework for Facebook was born.
What followed–a real-life adventure filled with slick venture capitalists, stunning women, and six-foot-five-inch identical-twin Olympic rowers–makes for one of the most entertaining and compelling books of the year. Before long, Eduardo’s and Mark’s different ideas about Facebook created in their relationship faint cracks, which soon spiraled into out-and-out warfare. The collegiate exuberance that marked their collaboration fell prey to the adult world of lawyers and money. The great irony is that while Facebook succeeded by bringing people together, its very success tore two best friends apart.
Producers Scott Rudin, Michael De Luca with Trigger Street‘s Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti are aiming to start production in early 2010.
“The Accidental Billionaires” is the perfect pairing of author and subject,” Spacey said. “It’s pure summer fun – a juicy, fast-paced, unputdownable Mezrich tale that adds to his canon of lad lit.” 
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