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NEW YORK (Reuters) - The audience for director David Fincher's "The Social Network" is expected to grow in coming months, spurred by fan buzz and rave reviews after a $22.4 million opening weekend at U.S. and Canadian box offices.
As the movie world heads into awards season, Fincher returned from Sweden where he has been filming the Hollywood version of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and talked to Reuters about how the film got made, what he thinks about Oscar buzz and how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is depicted.
Q: Why not have early test screenings of "Social Network"? That must have made Sony Pictures co-chair Amy Pascal nervous.
A: "When we finished it and we showed it to her, I said 'If you throw it out to a bunch of mall rats and bring 'em in to watch this movie to tell you if it is working or not, this movie is going to be dissected on Facebook before you have a chance to generate your notes about what it is.'
"So I said 'I urge you not to preview screen this movie' ... and let's put it out without ever having shown it to anyone' and Michael Lynton and Amy Pascal said, 'OK'."
Q: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has not cooperated with the film. How does the movie portray him?
A: "I hope he seems human. I hope he seems like a real person with insecurities and aspirations and he is fiercely protective of his creation as he should be, as I think that it ultimately gives his stay on this planet a reason.
"Some of the things that are suggested by some of the other people that were in his life, about how he started, or how he mistreated them, you are talking about someone who was 24, 22, 21 years-old when this was going on. We have all done things we probably weren't that proud of in our late teens."
Q: Unlike other 'true life' movies, this one comes very quickly after the actual events?
A. "When I read it, it felt to me 'We better be doing this now.' We better not wait nine months to start. It felt like it was talking about 'now' -- being a twitterer, being a twit, or twat, or whatever. It felt like it needed to be as close to the crater of this explosive technology as it could be. It seems to me like a year from now is too late."
Q: Does it have a perceived guaranteed audience from the some 500 million Facebook users worldwide?
A: "I don't think so. If you were to look at the myriad of people who devoted many many column inches to, 'Why would they make a movie about Facebook? I hate Facebook. I am going to hate this movie!' That's like saying, 'People like Cool Whip." but I don't think they should make a movie out of it."
Q: In your own words: true story or a work of fiction?
"It depends on who you talk to, we have shown the movie to people who know Sean Parker who say, 'It's amazing it's so much like him,' and we have shown it to others who say, 'It didn't lay a glove on him.' People look at Zuckerberg and go, 'It's uncanny' about Jesse Eisenberg and others who say, 'How could you? He (Eisenberg) is 26."
Q: In general, is making true life stories problematic?
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