Page Six is reporting today that Mark Zuckerberg “has indicated he’s interested” in appearing with Jesse Eisenberg, who plays him in “The Social Network” on “Saturday Night Live” tomorrow “to show he [Zuckerberg] has a sense of humor.”
“Others” are being quoted as saying that it would “be a coup” for the film’s producer, Scott Rudin, who has lately seen his former frontrunner lose significant ground in the Oscar race to the new leader, archival Harvey Weinstein’s “The King’s Speech.”
Coup? I think it would be more like a palace coup for “The King’s Speech.” Rudin’s film seemed so much more edgy back in August and September, when Zuckerberg and his minions were expressing displeasure about what they called the film’s inaccuracies.
Since then, Zuckerberg has embraced Eisenberg’s unflattering portrait of him — and the film — to such an extent that the filmmakers saw fit to thank the Facebook founder in their Golden Globes acceptance speeches.
I still think “The Social Network” is the best film of 2010, but if I were an Oscar voter I’d be wondering exactly how “unauthorized” a portrait of Zuckerberg it really is, now that its subject seems to be using it to drum up interest in the company’s upcoming IPO.