Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has revealed that he spent “three days” attempting to persuade Jesse Eisenberg to reprise the role of Mark Zuckerberg for The Social Reckoning.
Eisenberg, 42, received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of the divisive Facebook founder in the 2010 movie The Social Network, written by Sorkin and directed by David Fincher, which charts the early days of Facebook and Zuckerberg’s college years at Harvard.
However in the upcoming sequel The Social Reckoning, the role of Zuckerberg will be played by Succession star Jeremy Strong.
The West Wing creator Sorkin revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair that he did his very best to try and encourage Eisenberg to return for the second film, as he felt the role “belonged to him” and “he was certainly battle-tested”.
But after three days, Sorkin conceded defeat, as Eisenberg “simply did not want to be conflated with Mark Zuckerberg anymore” and “has his problems with the guy”.
“He doesn’t like kids coming up to him in airports with business cards that say ‘I’m CEO, b****’ for him to sign,” Sorkin added.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4 in 2025, Eisenberg admitted that he was not keeping tabs on Zuckerberg’s life as “I don’t want to think of myself as associated with somebody like that”.
The film, which will be released in cinemas in October, tracks the fallout after Facebook engineer Frances Haugen turns whistleblower and leaks information about the social media platform.
Haugen will be played by Oscar winner Mikey Madison, with The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White starring as Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz, who wrote The Facebook Files for the paper in 2021.
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Sorkin has described the film as “a real David and Goliath story”, while Strong has praised him for “one of the great scripts I’ve ever read”.
“It speaks to our time, it touches the third rail of everything happening in our world,” he added.
Strong has also revealed that he has not spoken to Eisenberg about taking the role, explaining “I think that has nothing to do with what I’m going to do”.
