Reel People: Jesse Eisenberg is Mark Zuckerberg

The film is The Social Network, directed by David Fincher (after his Academy Award attention for the Curious Case of Benjamin Button). The film about the founding of Facebook and it's subsequent challenges is based on the book The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal by Ben Mezrich. The screenplay is written by Aaron Sorkin.

Mark Zuckerberg

As the youngest billionaire in the world (currently 26), Zuckerberg's rise to fame and fortune came from a popular social network site he created at Harvard in February of 2004.

Prior to the launch of what became far bigger than surely Zuckerberg ever imagined, the Jewish student was born in White Plains, New York (May 14, 1984).

In school, Zuckerberg not only excelled in computer programming at an early age, but also classics and the study of Latin. It was this interest in classics that led to Zuckerbeg's ability to be transfered to Phillips Exeter Academy where he finished out his pre-college education.

Zuckerberg did create during this time a music program called Synapse which led to AOL's attempted purchase as well as the offer for Zuckerberg to work at AOL, this offer was declined so that he could attend college at Harvard.

While at Harvard, decided to take the idea of the Exeter "Facebook" and apply the concept as a web-based program to be used by students at Harvard. Zuckerberg designed this program alongside fellow students Chris Hughes, Dustin Moskovitz, and Eduardo Saverin.

Upon the success he allowed it to spread to other Universities (first other Ivy League universities like Stanford, Columbia, Brown & Yale).

Zuckerberg would then move out to Palo Alto with friends, including Maskovitz. After the Summer in Palo Alto, Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to continue to pursue Facebook.

Sean Parker, who was a cofounder of Napster became the president of Facebook when the company was incorporated in 2004 after being an informal adviser for the team launching the website.

With the sucess of Facebook, lawsuits and claims followed, the most famous that of a group of Harvard Students (Nishita Narendra, Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss) claiming that Zuckerberg was to help them build a website called HarvardConnection.com. This case filed in 2004 was settled in 2008 with a $65 million settlement.

Zuckerberg today continues to work with Facebook, and retains 24% ownership of the powerful and influential website with over 400 million active users and a growing revenue base.

The Social Network

The film The Social Network not only stars Eisenberg and Zuckerberg, but also features roles for the other Facebook co-founders. Andrew Garfield will play Eduardo Severin and Joseph Mazzello plays Dustin Moskovitz.

Justin Timberlake plays the role of entrepenuer and Facebook Inc. President, Sean Parker.

The film distributed by Columbia Pictures is set to be distributed October of this year.

Will Jesse Eisenberg earn critical attention and maybe even an Oscar nomination/win for playing this Reel (Real) Person?