Scott Brown on the Facebook Movie

Illustration: Leo Espinosa To: A. Sorkin, D. Fincher cc: Hollywood Re: Facebook Movie Gentlemen: My Google Reader informs me that you two are teaming up to write and direct a making-of-Facebook story (working title: The Social Network). While I'm a tad offended I wasn't notified through more formal channels—I am, after all, a member of Facebook […]

* Illustration: Leo Espinosa * To: A. Sorkin, D. Fincher
cc: Hollywood
Re: Facebook Movie

Gentlemen: My Google Reader informs me that you two are teaming up to write and direct a making-of-Facebook story (working title: The Social Network). While I'm a tad offended I wasn't notified through more formal channels—I am, after all, a member of Facebook and therefore entitled to give notes—I offer my heartiest congratulations. Aaron, I have no idea how you pulled off that script: Mark Zuckerberg isn't exactly known for rapid badinage, and Facebook, as concept, resists the bricks-and-mortar convention of hallway "walk-and-talks." (Wish you'd landed the Doom movie, A-Sorks—nothing but hallways in that one! Very West Wing.) On the other hand, a movie about Ivy League twerps putting their yearbook online, suing each other over boilerplate code, and ultimately dispatching a hapless foe (MySpace) sounds like a good flick for you to helm, Finchy. Lemme guess the twist: Those Nordic twins with the runaway pituitaries still litigating for a share of Facebucks? They're not real, right? They're Zuckerberg's Doublemint version of Tyler Durden—chips off the ol' id.

But enough backslapping: Let's talk turkey. This is going to be a terrible movie, right? I mean, it better be. Because Hollywood's ancien régime is counting on you to make social media look bad. They're eager to embalm Web 2.0 in celluloid. Otherwise, why bother with some silly silicon catfight? The titanic tech war between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs would've made a riveting flick 25 years ago. But Hollywood couldn't muster interest in those propellerheads back then and, decades later, relegated the whole saga into a made-for-TV-movie.

Today, however, the fear of new microstudios (College Humor, Funny or Die) and delivery systems (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube) is so fierce and so tangible that Tinseltown is reaching for its weapon of last resort: the handshake.* Hey, Social Media! Wanna be in pictures?* Well, of course it does, the same way triumphal Japanese businessmen enjoyed visiting Graceland in the '80s—to pose with a glitzy cultural relic. If you want to kill something in the shell, pluck it prematurely and smear it all over the big screen. It'll go from cutting edge to lite-FM lame faster than you can say "You've got mail."

With that in mind, I'd love to talk future projects. Let's get crackin' on Left 4 Twitter. The pitch: It's a zombie picture! The logline: A social network is thrown into panic when its members' very souls get sucked away by a simpler, faster, more smartphone-friendly social network. And here's your summer tent pole: Google Toolbar: Revenge of the Copyright. This one's pretty tried-and-true: Take an old brand we all feel a little nostalgic for, pour on the special effects, and cast Megan Fox as the cheesecake. When all the Google apps combine to form one massive menacing Toolbar (and unsheath the blazing Tool-sword), a collective OMFG! will shake this nation the likes of which hasn't been felt since Goatse. And speaking of Goatse: I hope like hell you're ready to meet Sacha Baron Cohen's latest outrageous character: GOATSE! He's ... well, you know who he is. We're going to send him to a church in the South, then just let the cameras run until the cops show up.

See the genius? Hollywood can simultanously appropriate and neutralize new media brands by miring them in old-media corn and cliché. The theoretical target audience for The Social Network—250 million (and counting) Facebookers—think of the site as small-screen Web utility, not big-screen fare; and nobody would confuse Mark Zuckerberg with Citizen Kane. Let's hope this movie goes straight to video and Hollywood maintains its oligopoly. That'll show those code monkeys who's boss. Yeah! High five! Peace out. —Scott

Email scott_brown@wired.com.

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