Screenplay
Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin said, "What attracted me to [the film project] had nothing to do with Facebook. The invention itself is as modern as it gets, but the story is as old as storytelling; the themes of friendship, loyalty, jealousy, class and power." He said he read an unfinished draft of The Accidental Billionaires when the publisher began "shopping it around" for a film adaptation. Sorkin added, "I was reading it and somewhere on page three I said yes. It was the fastest I said yes to anything ... They wanted me to start right away. Ben and I were kind of doing our research at the same time, sort of along parallel lines."[25]
According to Sorkin, Mezrich did not send him material from his book as he wrote it: "Two or three times we'd get together. I'd go to Boston, or we'd meet in New York and kind of compare notes and share information, but I didn't see the book until he was done with it. By the time I saw the book, I was probably 80 percent done with the screenplay."[25] Sorkin elaborated:
There's a lot of available research, and I also did a lot of first person research with a number of the people that were involved in the story. I can't go too deeply into that because most of the people did it on the condition of anonymity, but what I found was that two lawsuits were brought against Facebook at roughly the same time, that the defendant, plaintiffs, witnesses all came into a deposition room and swore under oath, and three different versions of the story were told. Instead of choosing one and deciding that's the truest one or choosing one and deciding that's the juiciest one, I decided to dramatize the idea that there were three different versions of the story being told. That's how I came up with the structure of the deposition room.[25]
Casting
Casting began in mid-2009, with Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, and Andrew Garfield announced to star.[26][27] Jonah Hill was in contention for Timberlake's role, but director David Fincher passed on him.[28] In October 2009, Brenda Song, Rooney Mara, Armie Hammer, Shelby Young, and Josh Pence were cast.[29] Max Minghella and Dakota Johnson were also confirmed.[29] In a 2009 interview with The Baltimore Sun, Eisenberg said, "Even though I've gotten to be in some wonderful movies, this character seems so much more overtly insensitive in so many ways that seem more real to me in the best way. I don't often get cast as insensitive people, so it feels very comfortable: fresh and exciting, as if you never have to worry about the audience. Not that I worry about the audience anyway – it should be just the furthest thing from your mind. The Social Network is the biggest relief I've ever had in a movie".[30] In 2010, it was mentioned that Rashida Jones would appear as Marylin Delpy.[16]
Filming
Principal photography began in October 2009 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[31] Scenes were filmed around the campuses of two Massachusetts prep schools, Phillips Academy and Milton Academy.[32] Additional scenes were filmed on the campus of Wheelock College, which was set up to be Harvard's campus.[33] (Harvard has turned down most requests for on-location filming ever since the filming of Love Story (1970), which caused significant physical damage to trees on campus.)[34] Filming took place on the Keyser and Wyman quadrangles in the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins University from November 2–4,[35] which also doubled for Harvard in the film.[36] The first scene in the film, where Zuckerberg is with his girlfriend, took 99 takes to finish.[4] The film was shot on the Red One digital cinema camera.[37] The rowing scenes with the Winklevoss brothers were filmed at Community Rowing Inc. in Newton, Massachusetts[38] and at the Henley Royal Regatta; miniature faking process was used in a sequence showing a rowing event at the latter.[39] Although a significant portion of the latter half of the film is set in Silicon Valley, the filmmakers opted to shoot those scenes in Los Angeles and Pasadena.
Armie Hammer, who portrayed the Winklevoss twins, acted alongside body double Josh Pence while his scenes were filmed. His face was later digitally grafted onto Pence's face during post-production, while other scenes used split-screen photography. Pence was concerned about having no face time during the role, but after considerable musing thought of the role as a "no-brainer". He also appears in a cameo role elsewhere in the film.[24] Hammer states that director David Fincher "likes to push himself and likes to push technology" and is "one of the most technologically minded guys I've ever seen."[40] This included sending the actors to "twin boot camp" for 10 months to learn everything about the Winklevosses.[24]
Rowing production
Harvard's rowing tradition is depicted in the film.Community Rowing Inc. held a casting call and a tryout for 20 rowing extras; some were graduates from Harvard, Northeastern University, Boston University, George Washington University, and Trinity College, as well as local club rowers from Union Boat Club and Riverside Boat Club.[41] None of the cast rowing extras for the Henley Royal Regatta racing scene appeared in the film; filming for the race was originally planned to take place in Los Angeles, but Fincher decided to film in England during production.[42]
David Fincher hired Loyola Marymount coach Dawn Reagan to help train Josh Pence and Armie Hammer.[43] While Hammer was new to the sport, Pence rowed previously at Dartmouth College.[43]
The indoor rowing scene was filmed at Boston University's indoor rowing tanks. All of BU's blue oars in the scene were repainted to Harvard's crimson color for filming. Dan Boyne was the official rowing consultant in the US and the UK.[42]
Soundtrack
On June 1, 2010, it was announced that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross would score the film.[44] The soundtrack was released September 28 in various formats under the Null Corporation label.[45] Leading up to the release of the soundtrack, a free five-track EP was made available for download.[46] The White Stripes' song "Ball and Biscuit" can be heard in the opening of the film and The Beatles' song "Baby, You're a Rich Man" concludes the film. Neither song appears on the soundtrack album. Reznor and Ross won the award for Best Original Score at the 2011 Golden Globe Awards,[47] as well as the 2011 Academy Award for Best Original Score.
