Writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning is projected to bomb this weekend with a disastrous opening somewhere between $6 million and $8 million.
Sixteen years ago, The Social Network opened to $22.4 million.
The Social Reckoning is a sequel to 2010’s The Social Network, the movie that won Sorkin a Best Screenplay Oscar, but was directed by David Fincher.
The Social Network was, by any standard, a legitimate critical and financial hit. On top of winning numerous awards, including eight Academy Award nominations (winning three), it scored a 96 percent fresh at Rotten Tomatoes and grossed a respectable $225 million at the global box office ($96 million domestic). With a $40 million production budget and a promotion budget that likely added another $60 to $70 million, it made some money, and continues to make money.
The Social Network was also a cultural hit, meaning it has legitimate staying power as a movie people still watch and talk about. If anything, time has improved its standing. That’s certainly true for me. Over the past 16 years, I’ve rewatched it numerous times and respect it more with each viewing. Sure, it’s based on the serious subject of a lawsuit birthed by betrayal. Nevertheless, all of this is premised on a fiercely smart, funny, and entertaining story about the human condition. The main characters are 30 years younger than me, live in a rarefied world I know nothing about, and are a helluva lot smarter. But because the story centers on how insecurity and ambition can destroy relationships, it’s something we can all relate to.
So why is the sequel projected to become one of the biggest bombs of the year?
The answer can be found in each movie’s trailer, its pitch to the moviegoing public, its appeal…
Watch the Social Network trailer first:
That trailer is so good it makes me want to watch the movie again, which I likely will this weekend. But what makes it so good? First off, it is about people — flawed people, smart people, people with dreams and aspirations, people who feel real… There’s also humor, drama, and conflict driven by relationships you believe in. Overall, the movie looks entertaining as hell and like it has something to say about who we are as human beings.
Now watch the Social Reckoning trailer…
Where’s the humanity? Where’s the humor? Where are the relatable characters and relationships?
Instead, it looks like a movie devoted to political lectures and hectoring, a movie desperate to tell us what we are supposed to think about a very specific issue. Above all, it’s wildly un-American, a fascist attempt to shame multinational corporations into censoring everyday people in the online public square. The movie only has this to say: Free speech is dangerous! Why aren’t the richest and most powerful elites in the world censoring everyday people? Why aren’t they deciding what opinions we can and cannot see? Why aren’t they controlling the political discussion?
This might be the first Hollywood movie since Gabriel Over the White House (1938) that openly advocates for fascism, that lobbies in favor of the will of the people being squashed for some elite asshole’s misguided ideal of the “greater good.”
The biggest difference is this…
The Social Reckoning is demanding we think in the “approved” and “correct” ways about a timely political topic.
The Social Network made us think about ourselves … which is why it’s timeless.