That’s not much of a surprise, given the relentless marketing campaign by the makers of “The Social Network,” which opened wide last Friday. It has garnered terrific critical acclaim.

Still, BoomTown was quite surprised to see a mention of the film on one of my favorite celebrity sites, TMZ.com.

Of course, because it is gossip-saturated, TMZ featured it as one of its naughty regular features called “Who’d You Rather?”

As in…well, you get the point.

This time they pitted Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg against the Winklevoss twins in a “Facebook Fight.”

“As part of the movie ‘The Social Network,’ twin brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss claim their Harvard [University] classmate Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea and created what is now this little website called Facebook,” TMZ wrote.

Also surprising, as you can see from the screenshot above, given what hunks of dudeness the Winklevii clearly are, is that Zuckerberg seems to be attracting one-third of the votes compared with their two-thirds.

And since there are two of them, the billionaire social networking wunderkind could be considered tied with the brothers!

Sweet justice after the slamming the Winklevii have been giving Zuckerberg in the media of late, even though they had signed a confidentiality agreement after their first $65 million settlement with him?

The Winklevii are trying to have that overturned and are inexplicably going for more, of course, which should keep the themes of the movie resonating for a while.

That will also be true if “The Social Network” garners some award nominations, especially the Oscar.

Also interesting will be to see if the movie will perform well this weekend or will drop off. It’s so far proved popular in the big cities on the coasts and in Silicon Valley, but now it has to go wide to make some real dough.

But, for sure, it will be on television eventually. Today, the FX cable network said it had bought the broadcast premiere rights to the movie.

It’s just a post on the popular entertainment blog “Deadline Hollywood.”

But it’s a clear indication the makers of the movie about the origins of Facebook are gunning for maximum attention and Oscar buzz with only a few weeks to go before its debut.

In fact, awards columnist Pete Hammond was pretty much channeling the marketing plan of Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin for “The Social Network,” which has its premiere in New York on September 24 and its wide rollout on October 1.

Rudin–the volcano of a producer about whom I would like to see a biopic like the one he is sticking it to Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg with–has apparently been personally inviting every online chatterbox (not me!) and their mother to screenings of the film from the Sony (SNE) movie unit, Columbia Pictures, in recent weeks.

Writes Hammond:

It’s a smart strategy but even without a personal invitation from one of the film’s producers this is already the current must-see movie on every Oscar watchers list. As an example of that, one blogger actually got on a plane from Toronto to New York just to see Social Network, then headed immediately back to Toronto. His subsequent review was a rave declaring it the one to beat for Best Picture (a little premature on that I think). That’s just one example of the praise now starting to hit the Internet from Hitfix to Slashfilm to Chud and all cyber points inbetween.

A little premature perhaps, but it seems to have worked with Hammond:

I saw it at the first opportunity on Monday and would have to say fairly objectively that The Social Network is Sony’s best shot at Best Picture in years, a lock for Golden Globe and Critics Choice Awards. And most importantly, Oscar nominations in every major category including Director for David Fincher, Writing for Aaron Sorkin, lead actor for Jesse Eisenberg (playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg), Supporting Actor for both Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ score, editing and so on. It also looks like it will be a major box office hit, hitting a nerve with the young demographic that are on the front lines of moviegoers…

Despite its high-tech bones, what Fincher and Sorkin have managed to do is tell a time-honored very human story, a social document for a generation that has as much relevance now as movies like On The Waterfront, Network, All The President’s Men, and The Graduate did in their time.

Expect more of the same from those who get sucked up into the marketing machine for “The Social Network” in the next weeks, even though it appears it will be devastating to the real-life version of its main subject, Mark Zuckerberg.

And really, really unfair, according to MediaMemo’s Peter Kafka, by taking one aspect of his personality–awkward arrogance or perhaps arrogant awkwardness–and twisting it into a much deeper malevolence.

I have no doubt in my mind that Zuckerberg pulled an epic geek sandbagging on the clueless Winklevoss twins by promising to work on their goofy concept for a social networking site at Harvard University, then not doing so and working on his own ideas instead.

And, for sure, he had a painfully typical start-up falling-out with his own early partners.

But let’s get real here–they all got paid off plenty for being present at the creation of something they themselves never could have created.

Does anyone honestly believe the Winklevii were capable of making Facebook, or any reasonable facsimile, any more than Zuckerberg was capable of rowing in the Olympics?

While hitting some right notes about Zuckerberg’s mannerisms–conversations with him can be very perplexing–the Mark of “The Social Network” is largely fictional.

Certainly, he has some glaring faults (and so do I!).

But they are no worse that other tech leaders’, from Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT) to Steve Jobs of Apple (AAPL) to Silicon Valley’s own twins, Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google (GOOG).

Interestingly, the night before what turned out to be a very difficult onstage interview at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference in June, at a dinner just south of Los Angeles, Zuckerberg fretted to me about the film.

“It’s what a lot of people will think I am like, because it’s a movie and that has impact on their perceptions,” he said with a lot of concern in his voice.

I pooh-poohed his complaints and told him not to worry about it too much.

“It’s just a movie,” I said. “No one believes what they see at the movies anymore.”

But as this film chugs along–gaining Oscar velocity right onto the stage of the Academy Awards at the Kodak Theatre at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard on February 27, 2011–I can now see Zuckerberg might have been right all along.

Apparently, the review is in–only one review, so far–but it’s a corker.

Although “The Social Network,” the Columbia Pictures movie about the origins of Facebook, is not coming out until its premiere at the New York Film Festival in October, Scott Foundas, a reviewer for its publication, Film Comment, is loving it in a piece in the September issue.

The magazine operates under the auspices of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, which throws the film event where “The Social Network” is debuting.

After a lot of film reviewer throat-clearing about not using social networking tools, harrumphing on its global implications and then bizarrely boiling Facebook down to being “born of a romantic rejection,” Foundas writes in the review titled “Revenge of the Nerd”:

This is very rich material for a movie on such timeless subjects as power and privilege, and such intrinsically 21st-century ones as the migration of society itself from the real to the virtual sphere–and David Fincher’s “The Social Network” is big and brash and brilliant enough to encompass them all….

Adapted by “The West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin from Ben Mezrich’s nonfiction best-seller “The Accidental Billionaires,” “The Social Network” was one of those “buzz” scripts that seemed to be on everyone’s lips in Hollywood for the past couple of years, and it’s easy to understand why. The writing is razor-sharp and rarely makes a wrong step, compressing a time-shifting, multi-character narrative into two lean hours, and, perhaps most impressively, digests its big ideas into the kind of rapid-fire yet plausible dialogue that sounds like what hyper computer geeks might actually say (or at least wish they did): Quentin Tarantino crossed with Bill Gates.

Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Now, I am beginning to feel bad for CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, because it looks like this film might even be Oscar-worthy for Columbia’s Sony (SNE) bosses.

But more:

From a legal perspective, it’s a thorny case of he-said/he-said, though the movie is less concerned with assigning blame than with considering Zuckerberg’s precise degree of assholedom, or lack thereof….But to the sure nervousness of the studio, and the potential discomfort of some viewers, Fincher and Sorkin chart a more treacherous course straight down the middle of Zuckerberg’s many contradictions, one in which there are no obvious winners or losers, good guys or bad–only a series of highly pressurized social (and genetic) forces.

Oh, dear, a treacherous course, well charted.

Lest I seem to suggest otherwise, I hasten to add that “The Social Network” is splendid entertainment from a master storyteller, packed with energetic incident and surprising performances (not least from Justin Timberlake as Napster founder Sean Parker, who’s like Zuckerberg’s flamboyant, West Coast id). It is a movie of people typing in front of computer screens and talking in rooms that is as suspenseful as any more obvious thriller. But this is also social commentary so perceptive that it may be regarded by future generations the way we now look to “Gatsby” for its acute distillation of Jazz Age decadence.

Oh, dear, Gatsby, and back to fabulous. May I have the envelope, please…

What to do then?

Here are BoomTown’s five steps to reclaim the ground in this seemingly surefire Hollywood invasion of Silicon Valley.:

1.) Even though he looked at me like I was tripping, I wasn’t kidding when I recently told Zuckerberg to attend the New York premiere. With me! (Elliot can come only if he keeps a lid on it.)

If Zuckerberg attends, he is the story, sucking the oxygen away from the movie itself, especially if he looks fly and laughs a lot.

A tux, going up to the actor who plays him and saying the resemblance is astonishing and general self-deprecation can go a long way.

Especially when you are the only one who ended up a soon-to-be billionaire, including the moviemakers and their bosses.

2.) Throw a movie night at Facebook for the staff–and make it a double feature with the excellent “Catfish,” about a scammer on the social networking site.

Then, lead a discussion group about the fact versus fiction. Ignoring this film, especially if it is a hit, does not make its impact go away.

Invite the filmmakers and all the players from back then to talk too–Winklevii alert, but this time Zuck has security! To be sure, this is a risky one, given Zuckerberg’s sometime awkwardness in public.

3.) Unveil all the original documents–and I mean all–about those years, making them available on Facebook for all to see. The Winklevoss case and others are settled now, so there seems little need to hide what was clearly a rocky start.

If Zuckerberg and Facebook truly believe in transparency, use the movie to get it all out there and be done with it.

4.) The ignoring-it option seems only available to an island like Apple (AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs, who truly does not care what people think of him. On the other hand, Zuckerberg surely and clearly does.

If he wants to take the company public, why not practice with intense scrutiny here, as these incidents at the origin of Facebook are still not purged from the company.

5.) After it’s all over, live well. It’s apparently the best revenge. (Also, at least “The Social Network” is going to be much more interesting than the Google (GOOG) Movie.

It was inevitable, I suppose, that the highly stylized trailers for the upcoming movie “The Social Network” would be ripe for mocking.

The full trailer from Sony (SNE) film unit Columbia Pictures, released last week, uses a creepy Vega Choir version of the Radiohead song “Creep,” and has all kinds of dramatic flourishes–making it perfect for spoofs.

Here are three, from: 1938 Media (in which co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is played by a 2×4 piece of wood); from Australian comic Dan Ilic; and one that’s not exactly a trailer, but is the interview Walt Mossberg and I did at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference with Zuckerberg set to “Creep” (it oddly enough works).

The first full trailer is at the bottom for comparison.

Enjoy:

Dear Mark Zuckerberg:

Uh-oh, from the looks of this full-length trailer for the upcming movie, “The Social Network,” about founding of Facebook, it’s not going to be a positive portrayal of you.

One bright spot: The hoodie is just right. And Sean Parker as channeled by Justin TImberlake looks nutso.

Also, apropos of nothing, the “Which part?” query at the end is spot on, having experienced it myself.

There have been two teaser trailers so far, but this is the first look at actual scenes about the social networking site’s origins in the movie.

But it is not pretty and includes the Vega Choir’s creepy rendition of Radiohead’s song “Creep.”

That would be you, Mark, according to the movie, which opens this fall. One possibility: The audience will embrace you as an anti-hero.

For certain from the trailers, the film–from Sony (SNE) unit Columbia Pictures–looks like it is leaving out the well-deserved part about you being a visionary entrepreneur, with an innovative drive on the same continuum of Bill Gates of Microsoft (MSFT), Jeff Bezos of Amazon (AMZN), Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google (GOOG) and, yes, even Steve Jobs of Apple (AAPL).

Maybe you should wait for the Silicon Valley sequel.

Here’s the video, if you dare to watch:

And here’s the real Mark Zuckerberg in action in an interview with Walt Mossberg and me at the eighth D: All Things Digital conference last month:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100715/the-facebook-movie-full-trailer-creepier-pokier-anti-zuckerbergier/feed/ 7 http://allthingsd.com/20100708/another-teaser-trailer-for-the-facebook-movie-100-percent-more-poking-of-zuckerberg/ http://allthingsd.com/20100708/another-teaser-trailer-for-the-facebook-movie-100-percent-more-poking-of-zuckerberg/#comments Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:08:59 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=30362

Here’s another teaser trailer for “The Social Network,” which makes it clear that the movie is going to be a warts-and-all-and-then-more warts portrait of the beginnings of Facebook.

Most maligned: Co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who seems to be portrayed as a social networking sociopath.

Unlike the first–which uses single words such as “punk” and “genius,” foreboding music and some dialogue about the Web that sounds downright scary–this one uses a series of typed Wall messages on Facebook among its founders, including Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz and Eduardo Saverin.

Also making a special guest appearance: The Winklevoss brothers, who have claimed Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook (and whom BoomTown has affectionately dubbed The Winklevii!)

It’s all very intense, as you will see, especially the last line, uttered like there is some sort of sharp weapon involved: “You better lawyer up, since I’m coming back for everything!!!”

Rut-roh!

The marketing of this film about the Silicon Valley phenom should be pretty interesting to watch. Yesterday, I reported that Sony (SNE) studio unit Columbia Pictures will not be using Facebook to advertise “The Social Network,” due to issues around its advertising parameters.

But there are fan pages for the movie on Facebook, so apparently all is fair in, well, war and war.

Adding more fuel to the fire, it was just announced today the movie will open the New York Film Festival on September 24th (Elliot, will you attend with me?)

So, until the movie is out, here’s the new video of the trailer, with the first below it:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100708/another-teaser-trailer-for-the-facebook-movie-100-percent-more-poking-of-zuckerberg/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100625/viral-video-scary-teaser-trailer-makes-upcoming-facebook-movie-seem-like-a-slasher-film/ http://allthingsd.com/20100625/viral-video-scary-teaser-trailer-makes-upcoming-facebook-movie-seem-like-a-slasher-film/#comments Sat, 26 Jun 2010 00:45:47 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=29891

Here is the new teaser trailer for “The Social Network,” the upcoming movie about the early days of Facebook.

Oddly enough, it makes the founding of the social networking company seem like a visit to that creepy house in “The Amityville Horror.”

Using only portentous voices, big menacing words and doom-filled music, it gives a whole new meaning to poking.

For example, the lines, “The site got 2,200 hits within two hours? No, 22,000…,” sounds like someone knew what Facebook did last summer–probably violated the privacy of the wrong hostel host–and is coming to take some body parts.

The Columbia Pictures film, which is out in October, has the tagline: “You can’t make 500 million friends without making a few enemies.”

More like an army of flash-eating zombies!

Yipes:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100625/viral-video-scary-teaser-trailer-makes-upcoming-facebook-movie-seem-like-a-slasher-film/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20090624/boomtowns-top-10-list-of-fact-challenged-revelations-that-should-be-in-the-facebook-tell-all-book/ http://allthingsd.com/20090624/boomtowns-top-10-list-of-fact-challenged-revelations-that-should-be-in-the-facebook-tell-all-book/#comments Wed, 24 Jun 2009 22:34:39 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=14955

How much is BoomTown and everyone else in Silicon Valley trying to nab a copy of Ben Mezrich’s likely-to-be-entirely-made-up-but-who-cares tale of dirty doings at Facebook?

Muchety-much! So much so that I called all my book industry contacts–hey, I am a published author, ya know!–even though I have not actually completed reading a book since the Internet started and gave me permanent attention deficit disorder.

But, so far I have come up peanuts in grabbing an early copy of Mezrich’s tome, “The Accidental Billionaires,” which is set to come out July 14.

Facebook is not pleased, of course, and will likely be challenging Mezrich’s work as specious dreck. But the drama around the book should be interesting, to say the least.

More so, since this week also came news that actors Michael Cera and Shia LaBeouf are being considered to play founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and that David Fincher, the director of the lugubrious Brad Pitt snoozer, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” is “attached” to the movie version.

Even better: “West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin will pen it and actor Kevin Spacey will produce the Columbia Pictures film, which will be called “The Social Network.”

Well, Hollywood sure came up with an original title!

It certainly does not signal the juiciness of the proposal for the book–which did manage to leak out last year–with a lot of tale tales in it that seem to have pretty much tracked on its oddly purple subtitle of “The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal.”

The cover–which you can see on the book’s Facebook page (the delicious gall of Mezrich!)–features a spilled martini glass and a red bra flung nearby.

Martinis? Red bras? Sex? Facebook? Really?

Obviously, Mezrich has not actually met Zuckerberg, who is a very nice geekish young man, but who has approximately the sex appeal of a rack of Facebook servers.

Powerful yes! Spockish? Yes! Sexy? Um, no, no, no.

I will not even begin to parse the red bra thing, although I am attributing the martinis to stylish former COO (and now MySpace CEO) Owen Van Natta.

But, apparently, the sex part seems to have to do with Zuckerberg starting the company with others while an undergrad at Harvard University, as a scheme to meet some ladies.

I would say there are easier ways to attract the womenfolk–not that I could give tips or anything–but whatever!

Thus, since I cannot get my mitts on the book (yet!), here’s my list of 10 completely made-up, utterly fabricated, just-call-me-Jayson-Blair things that should be in the book.

10.) Facebook was actually going to be called OnlyPrettyLadyFacebook, but cooler heads prevailed.

9.) The Wall? A clever plot by Zuckerberg to build his online service on a fascist construct, touting his hegemony over all he surveyed.

Wait, that actually happened, and now some Russians are even investors.

Long live the Zuckrepublic of Palo Alto!

8.) Reason for stealing, oops, borrowing, oops again, completely separately developing an exact replica of ConnectU social network at Harvard:

The Olympically muscle-headed Winklevoss twins used to beat up the brainy Zuckerberg on his way back to the dorm, prompting a “Revenge of the Nerds” plot line.

7.) Facebook’s Beacon advertising? All Randi Zuckerberg’s idea, so she could find out what she was getting for her birthday from her billionaire-on-paper brother.

6.) Zuckerberg’s famous flip-flops were made in China under dubious working conditions. Wait, that’s true too.

5.) The 20-something Zuckerberg is actually 93 years old, a real-life version of Benjamin Button, which would explain the social awkwardness and staring-into-space-sometimes thing.

4.) The no-breast-feeding-pictures controversy pretty much proves no one is interested in bras or, more precisely, what goes in them at Facebook.

3.) COO Sheryl Sandberg is a cyborg sent to Facebook from Google for purposes of infiltration. She and her crafty sidekick, Elliott Schrage, will become self-aware in 2012 and hunt down Zuckerberg in a thrilling chase that will also become a movie.

2.) The sex, drugs and rock-and-roll stuff actually all took place at MySpace, which really pisses off certifiably dashing co-Founders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson because, once again, Zuckerberg stole their mojo!

1.) This work of fiction, oops, “fact”-ion, oops again, nonfiction, is probably not going to sell many copies because it will mysteriously be uploaded in its entirety by a widget that will distribute it free to Facebook’s 200 million plus users while simultaneously SuperDuperPoking Mezrich, by throwing real sheep at him.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Ben.

(By the way, here is an extra for you: The $15 billion valuation for Facebook, along with all the other Web 2.0 ones? Totally true. Just ask any VC.)

And, in case anyone was wondering what the real Facebook looks like, here is a recent video tour I did of its new HQ in Palo Alto, Calif.:

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