Facebook – The movie.

Columbia Pictures has officially announce “The Social Network” (unofficially known as the Facebook movie), with production set to begin in October.

Aaron Sorkin (writer and creator of “The West Wing” and “Sports Night”) has written the script, which is based on Ben Mezrich’s book, “The Accidental Billionaires.”

David Fincher (”Fight Club”) is directing the film. There isn’t any word about casting right now, but with production starting in six to eight weeks, expect those details to be finalized soon.

The pop star – Justin Timberlake is being considered for the lead role player. He will cast as Sean Parker, The Founding President of Facebook who also co-founded napster, in the new film.

Variety reported that the Facebook movie would focus on the evolution of the website from its creation in 2004 by student Mark Zuckerberg into a global phenomenon with more than 200 million members.

Fincher’s other film credits include dark crime thriller Seven, Fight Club, and Zodiac.

There’s already some speculation about who will play the lead role of Zuckerberg.

CNET News is reporting that an entertainment industry source says early casting searches are in train with both Michael Cera (who played the role of Paulie Bleeker in the 2007 hit movie Juno) and Shia LaBeouf (who is currently appearing in Transformers) in the frame.

The film script is reportedly based on a new book called The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook. Written by Ben Mezrich, the book is due to be published next month.

The CNET report says that there are indications that the book portrayed Zuckerberg unfavourably, “as an obnoxious nerd”.

“… obnoxious nerds are not the world’s biggest box-office sell,” reports CNET News. “Cera could make the part a little bit more sympathetic.”

Last year, Facebook settled a claim with twin brothers Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss who claimed that they enlisted Zuckerberg to finish software code for their social-networking website while they were all students at Harvard in 2003.

Zuckerberg, a second year student at the time, took their code and their idea and launched Facebook in February of 2004 instead of holding up his end of the deal, according to the lawsuit.

Facebook and the Winklevoss brothers negotiated a settlement that saw Facebook buying their company, ConnectU, for an undisclosed amount of cash and stock, according to court documents.

A condition of the deal was that all parties keep details confidential or pay a multi-million-dollar penalty.

However, Facebook’s law firm inadvertently let slip that its client paid $US65 million ($A99.04 million) to settle a lawsuit.

so who will play the role for the nerd “zuckerberg”??

please post your comment, all….