Sorkin Assumed Eisenberg Would Return as Zuckerberg. The Sequel Opens Without Him.
Jesse Eisenberg declined to reprise his portrayal of Meta mogul Mark Zuckerberg in “The Social Reckoning,” Aaron Sorkin’s sequel to “The Social Network” (2010). Deadline describes it as Sorkin logging back into Facebook and finding his friend request denied. The film premieres Oct. 9. What’s notable is Sorkin’s reaction: it “never occurred” to him that Eisenberg wouldn’t want to come back. That reads less like arrogance than authorship — a writer hears his lines in one particular voice, and that voice can be hard to unhear. An actor, reasonably enough, may treat a role as a chapter he has already finished.
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Reading Sorkin’s surprise as vanity misses the more ordinary explanation: he wrote these lines hearing one voice deliver them. Unhearing it is the hard part, not letting go of a paycheck.
Which is exactly the actor’s prerogative. A part can be the thing that defines a writer’s career and still be the thing its performer is done with — and a sequel has to live with that either way.