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The Social Network - Screenplay

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Loose leaf copy of a draft of the shooting script of the movie The Social Network staring Jesse Eisenberg. Written by Aaron Sorkin.

161 pages, Loose Leaf

First published January 1, 2009

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37 people want to read

About the author

Aaron Sorkin

23 books269 followers
Aaron Benjamin Sorkin is an American screenwriter, producer and playwright, whose works include A Few Good Men, The American President, The West Wing, Sports Night and The Farnsworth Invention.

After graduating from Syracuse University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Musical Theatre in 1983, Sorkin spent much of the 1980s in New York as a struggling, largely unemployed actor. He found his passion in writing plays, and quickly established himself as a young promising playwright. His stageplay A Few Good Men caught the attention of Hollywood producer David Brown, who bought the film rights before the play even premiered.

Castle Rock Entertainment hired Sorkin to adapt A Few Good Men for the big screen. The movie, directed by Rob Reiner, became a box office success. Sorkin spent the early 1990s writing two other screenplays at Castle Rock for the films Malice and The American President. In the mid-1990s he worked as a script doctor on films such as Schindler's List and Bulworth. In 1998 his television career began when he created the comedy series Sports Night for the ABC network. Sports Night's second season was its last, and in 1999 overlapped with the debut of Sorkin's next TV series, the political drama The West Wing, this time for the NBC network. The West Wing won multiple Emmy Awards, and continued for three more seasons after he left the show at the end of its fourth season in 2003. He returned to television in 2006 with the dramedy Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, about the backstage drama at a late night sketch comedy show, once again for the NBC network. While Sorkin's return was met with high expectations and a lot of early online buzz before Studio 60's premiere, NBC did not renew it after its first season in which it suffered from low ratings and mixed reception in the press and on the Internet. His most recent feature film screenplay is Charlie Wilson's War.

After more than a decade away from the theatre, Sorkin returned to adapt for the stage his screenplay The Farnsworth Invention, which started a workshop run at La Jolla Playhouse in February 2007 and which opened on Broadway in December 2007.

He battled with a cocaine addiction for many years, but after a highly publicized arrest he received treatment in a drug diversion program and rid himself of drug dependence. In television, Sorkin is known as a controlling writer, who rarely shares the job of penning teleplays with other writers. His writing staff are more likely to do research and come up with stories for him to tell. His trademark rapid-fire dialogue and extended monologues are complemented, in television, by frequent collaborator Thomas Schlamme's characteristic visual technique called the "Walk and Talk".

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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
Profile Image for Myrtheee.
32 reviews
July 19, 2024
I'm CEO, bitch.

ICONIC. What an icon. Talked about that for 10 minutes in my screenwriting class.
Profile Image for August .
103 reviews
Read
February 24, 2025
❤️
"MARK is settling into his chair. He’ll wait all night if he
has to.
*Facebook has 500 million members in 207 countries. It's
currently valued at 25 billion dollars.
Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest billionaire in the world.*
MARK waits...
And waits...
And we
SNAP TO BLACK
ROLL MAIN TITLE"

OH MY GOD!!! OH MY GOD!! I just gave a standing ovation in my bedroom to this script, god damn!! This is a masterclass in screenwriting right here!! Alan Sorkin you beauty!
The perfect example of how you handle conflict and resolution in a script, I'm so much in awe by this, I've seen the movie twice and still when the last scene came and that last page of him just sitting in the office, refreshing the Facebook page while we, the audience ( reader ) are given time to let it all sink in........just chef's kiss 🤌. And just to add this, the approach to a screenplay in this very mechanical method is something I'm not always on board with, but the story they are telling here, the actual person, the performances of the actors and David Fincher's beautiful direction, and the amazing Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross score just everything comes together so well here, so yeah to the screenplay and the movie both........MASTERPIECE.
Profile Image for Taher Bellah.
Author 17 books534 followers
January 31, 2025
One of the best screenplays I have ever read.
انتظروا فيلم يونيكورن قريبا في جميع دور العرض.
Profile Image for Realini Ionescu.
4,077 reviews19 followers
June 26, 2025
The Social Network by Aaron Sorkin -the creator of Charlie Wilson’s War and other great motion pictures, reviewed on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20....

9 out of 10

This was not just an entertaining movie, it works as an educational material as well, both in terms of what we should do to be successful, and what needs to be avoided, a lesson in what not to do, and how unlikeable tycoons can be

It will be a subjective note, so you could, maybe should stop right here, for I am really angry with Zuckerberg and hence, I will try and push him to the floor, the mosquito trying to get at the elephant or hippopotamus

- The boss of Facebook has decided to bend the knee in front of Orange Jesus

He is not alone, alas, Jeff Bezos and other billionaires feel they have to gain from being servile to this ridiculous buffoon, contributing millions to his inauguration, attending this disgraceful event, and humiliating themselves for riches
It does not take more than the blink of an eye https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... to see what this Orange Jesus is, a con artist and a symbol of how little humanity has progressed

- If this is the leader of the free world, I am sorry, but we are fucked

It does not have to be all that calamitous, even if nothing ‘really catastrophic’ happens, the mere fact that the ‘greatest democracy’ in the world elects the epitome of fraud, stupidity, braggadocio, self-aggrandizing

- It is an omen

To say a few words about The Social Network, with hindsight, we can look at what Zuckerberg did and have the seeds for what he shows now – callousness, greediness and abjection, at least in my mind, albeit I am subjective
Nexus https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... is a phenomenal book by Yuval Harari, and among the many things you discover in this fabulous work, you have a look at

- Facebook

They have algorithms that are meant to encourage engagement, they want people to spend as much time as possible online, and on their platform in particular, so the Artificial Intelligence is working to get results
The trouble is that a mild post does not get people excited – there are some conditions for Flow https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... - users want violence, hatred

Thus, in Myanmar, where Facebook is seen as the internet itself, hateful posts have been shared and the algorithms promoted them exponentially, with the result that many were killed there, in part because of the gentle

- Mark Zuckerberg

Another country where Facebook has had a major impact is Brazil, where Bolsonaro came from an almost unknown figure to the one who became president, and then spread his cocktail of lies, conspiracy theories
He is a replica of Orange Jesus and far right leaders are emerging to take power in various parts of the world, including the European Union, places like Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, Austria most recently and maybe even here

We have had our very own idiot, a smaller Trump, who came top at the recent presidential elections, pushed up by TikTok, and illegal intervention from Russia, so the elections have been annulled, and hopefully, this fool will be disqualified

- He had a series of diatonic claims, such as ‘Pepsi has nanochips’

Still, because of this misinformation, the fact that so many are stupid, and choose the likes of the Orange Clown and copycats, makes it a perilous time to live in, look at what the leader of the free world did just lately https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20...

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/20... – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/r...

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’


141 reviews
January 12, 2024
Honestly,whenever I read a Sorkin script it's equal parts inspiring and depressing. His characters are so rich. His dialogue is so sharp. His scene description is so economic and still so riveting. As an aspiring screenwriter its overwhelming. Every piece of his I read I absolutely devour. Now, I've seen the movie before, but the script is every bit as digestible as the film that adapted it. A masterclass in the craft of screenwriting.
Profile Image for Phou.
231 reviews
May 17, 2024
IMPRESIONANTE!!! Qué mente Aaron Sorkin
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews

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