'The Social Reckoning' follows the events that led to The Wall Street Journal's exposés on the company's practices in 2021
NEED TO KNOW
- Jeremy Strong stars as Mark Zuckerberg in the trailer for The Social Reckoning
- Aaron Sorkin’s new movie is described as “a companion piece” to 2010’s The Social Network, which he also wrote
- The Social Reckoning also stars Jeremy Allen White, Mikey Madison, Wunmi Mosaku, Bill Burr and Billy Magnussen
Moviegoers are finally getting their first glimpse at Jeremy Strong as Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Reckoning.
Sony Pictures released the trailer for The Social Reckoning, a sequel of sorts to 2010's The Social Network, on Wednesday, June 10. The movie is written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, who penned the iconic movie that helped launch Jesse Eisenberg's acting career through his own performance as Facebook and Meta founder Zuckerberg, now 42.
Sixteen years later, The Social Reckoning sees Strong, 47, portray Zuckerberg in the late 2010s and 2020, as then-The Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz (Jeremy Allen White) meets with a Facebook employee named Frances Haugen (Mikey Madison) regarding a potential story.
Credit: Leah Gallo
The new movie is described as "a companion piece" to 2010's The Social Network in an official synopsis.
"Sorkin's original screenplay is based on the events that gave rise to The Wall Street Journal's shocking exposé The Facebook Files," the synopsis reads. "The film is inspired by the true story of how Frances Haugen (Madison), a young Facebook engineer, enlists the help of Jeff Horwitz (White), a Wall Street Journal reporter, to go on a dangerous journey that ends up blowing the whistle on the social network's most guarded secrets."
The Wall Street Journal's series of 2021 exposés on Facebook, collectively known as "The Facebook Files," alleged Facebook allowed the accounts of high-profile users to bypass its rules, allowing some to post material inciting violence or harassment; downplayed data that showed Instagram is harmful to young teens, namely girls; and made changes to its algorithm that made people "angrier," among other allegations.
The real-life Haugen even told 60 Minutes in a 2021 interview that Facebook had evolved into something that "is tearing our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world."
Zuckerberg himself defended the company and stated in an open letter he published on Facebook in October 2021, after Haugen testified in front of a Senate Commerce subcommittee, that the notion that the company would "deliberately push content that makes people angry for profit is deeply illogical."
Credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment/Youtube
News first broke that Sorkin would write and direct a follow-up to The Social Network, which explored Facebook's origins, in June 2025. David Fincher directed that movie, while Sorkin won an Oscar for his screenplay at the 2011 Academy Awards.
None of that movie's cast, which included Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake and Armie Hammer alongside Eisenberg, will appear in the new movie. The Social Reckoning's cast also includes Wunmi Mosaku, Betty Gilpin, Billy Magnussen and Bill Burr.
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The Social Reckoning is in theaters Oct. 9.
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