Aaron Sorkin's new Facebook film, "The Social Reckoning," grossed only $9 million worldwide in its debut weekend. The movie explores the scandals surrounding one of the most influential social networks, according to infohub.kz.
The original "The Social Network" came out in 2010 and chronicled the creation of Facebook and the conflict over its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. That film received eight Oscar nominations and won three statuettes, including one for Sorkin's adapted screenplay. The sequel moves viewers to a later period and examines the social network from a different angle.
At the center of "The Social Reckoning" is former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, who decided to expose the company's internal documents. Alongside Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, she tries to reveal the social network's secrets and how its decisions affect users. Writer-director Aaron Sorkin drew on real events surrounding the 2021 leak of Facebook documents.
Jeremy Strong, known for the series "Succession," plays Zuckerberg in the sequel. In the first film, Jesse Eisenberg portrayed the Facebook founder, but he chose not to return to the role. The film also features new central characters: Mikey Madison plays Haugen, and Jeremy Allen White plays journalist Horwitz.
Over the first weekend, the film took in $5.5 million in the U.S. and another $3.5 million internationally. With a budget of about $30 million, that's a rather weak start, so "The Social Reckoning" will most likely struggle to recoup its production costs. That's especially true since the studio will also need to cover advertising and distribution expenses.
Earlier, Kursiv LifeStyle reported that a New Mexico state court in the U.S. ordered Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, to pay fines totaling $942 million. It must pay for the harm caused to children by social media algorithms and inadequate age verification of users.