Fans attending openingweekend showings in Los Angeles and San Francisco said they understood why some events were fictionalized in the movie, which chronicles the acrimonious beginnings of the world’s largest virtual gathering place. “I know they took a lot of liberties,” Dylan Kellogg, 16 and seeing the movie for a second time, said in Glendora, California. Zuckerberg is “really smart,” he said. “The movie portrays him as a person who’s driven by his own goals, but I think what he made was something that’s pretty cool for a lot of people.”
The Social Network, among the year’s most praised movies by critics, follows Zuckerberg, now 26, as he rises from social outcast at Harvard to billionaire. By the time the movie ends, he’s become alienated from his friends by lawsuits and squabbles over control of the company.
Made for $50 million, the Sony Corp film made $23 million in its opening weekend, according to Box Office Mojo.
In the movie, Zuckerberg creates Facebook after being hired by three other students to help them build a social-networking site for Harvard students. The trio, Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra, settled their lawsuit for $65 million in 2008. They later contested the settlement, seeking more money.
Zuckerberg was also sued by friend and Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin, played by Andrew Garfield. Saverin settled his lawsuit for an undisclosed amount. (A New York man, Paul Ceglia, also claims an ownership stake in Facebook.) By its close, the movie portrayed Zuckerberg in a positive light, said Patrick Tran, 21, after seeing it in San Francisco.
Facebook said in an emailed statement, “To celebrate a period of intense activity at Facebook, we decided to go to the movies... We thought this particular movie (The Social Network) might be amusing.” BLOOMBERG
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