Oscar winning writer Aaron Sorkin recently told the Associated Press that “there should be a sequel” to “The Social Network”. Sorkin penned the screenplay to David Fincher’s 2010 drama about the birth of Facebook and rise of its founder Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg.
A lot has happened in the nine years since that film’s release, with Zuckerberg a public and media target on numerous occasions. The latest is one of Facebook’s worst outages in recent memory. The social media giant was down for most users on Wednesday, causing worldwide panic. Instagram wasn’t working either, just adding fuel to the raging fire.
So what happens when Facebook and Instagram are down? Why, users flock to Twitter, of course! Millions used 280 characters and gifs to express their frustration. And the keywords “Facebook”, “Instagram”, “Facebook and Instagram”, “Instagram and Facebook”, #FacebookDown and #InstagramDown were six of Twitter’s top 30 trending topics.
And yes, you’re reading that right. On the same day all this happened, Twitter expanded their Top 20 Trending list to a Top 30. Next it’ll be a Top 40 with a picture of Ryan Seacrest’s head to go along with it.
Getting back to Sorkin: if he thinks it’s time for “The Social Network II”, this is actually a decent framework to build your story around. Similar to what he did with “Steve Jobs”, Sorkin could create a real-time day for Zuckerberg at Facebook when the site is completely down. He and others are scrambling to fix the worldwide outage as quickly as possible. But during this process, Zuckerberg thinks about his past (including those high-profile, recent events). And various people from his past and present interrupt him throughout the day to stir up his future.
Sorkin and I met at the 2013 Critics Choice Awards. Nice guy and, as we all know, a very talented writer. If you’re reading this and like the idea, send me a message.