The Social Network was a cautionary tale, says Aaron Sorkin

Aaron Sorkin intended The Social Network to be a "cautionary tale".

The 65-year-old filmmaker wrote The Social Network, the 2010 biographical drama film about Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook - but Aaron admits it didn't necessarily land as he anticipated it would.

Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, Aaron explained: "We were surprised after The Social Network came out that there were two reactions to Mark, split along generational lines.

"If you were a little bit older, you saw it as a cautionary tale, which is what it was intended to be. If you were a little bit younger, surprisingly, you saw it as an inspirational story. ‘Oh wow, I can drop out of school and have an idea and be a billionaire.’"

Aaron explained that The Social Reckoning, the standalone sequel to The Social Network, is something else entirely.

The film - which explores the 2021 Facebook leak by the whistleblower Frances Haugen and Jeff Horwitz - has Zuckerberg in the role of a supporting character.

Aaron - who wrote, co-produced, and directed The Social Reckoning - shared: "It’s not just that he’s older now or that he’s made $120 billion; the company’s worth a trillion dollars and has three billion users. It’s no longer a social media company. It’s no longer about keeping in touch with your friends from school. Now they’ve added a newsfeed, and that newsfeed is run by an algorithm.

"So you’re getting different news than I’m getting, than he’s getting, than they’re getting. We’re all living in our own world."

Aaron also pushed back against the idea that Zuckerberg is "a villain".

He explained: "He’s making bad decisions that are hurting us. But in dramatist terms, he’s not a villain.

"He’s an antihero. A villain has bad intentions. They want the money, they want revenge, that kind of thing. An antihero, the intentions are good: ‘I want to connect everybody in the world.’ But the way an antihero goes about doing it, the decisions they ultimately make are bad."

Jeremy Strong plays Zuckerberg in the new movie, and he's opened up about his approach to the role.

The 47-year-old actor said: "Aaron is always examining the fault lines in our society, and I’ve been interrogating those things, but he’s a writer like Mozart is a composer. He’s that good.

"All I can do is try to be as accurate and truthful as I can and take responsibility for that in what I’m rendering, in the person that I’m rendering, and certainly not set out to vilify him. I’m not interested in making judgements."