Johns Hopkins photographer Will Shepherdson, who shoots for the News-Letter student newspaper, sent us the above and below pics from the set of the forthcoming Facebook movie (click to enlarge). In the Aaron Sorkin-written film, co-founder and CEO Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg, sports such diverse outfits as a light grey Gap hoodie and the darker, logo-less gray hoodie below, also seen in earlier pictures of the filming.

When Eisenberg has his hoodie up and on his head, we'll know that's the scene where he's breaking into the dorm to steal student data while a couple makes out on the sofa.

(Pics: Will Shepherdson/Johns Hopkins News-Letter)

Pacific Coast News has snapped a picture of Timberlake on the set of The Social Network, the Facebook flick also staring Jesse Eisenberg as co-founder and current CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Andrew Garfield as spurned co-founder Eduardo Saverin. We've put the shot, above, next to a Jan. 2009 Getty picture of real-life Sean Parker. Timberlake's got the the curly hair down; with some highlights and that wardrobe he might pass for the 'N Sync version of himself from the late 1990s. Click to enlarge.

Timberlake picture by Pacific Coast News

Actors Jesse Eisenberg (Zuckerberg) and Andrew Garfield (Saverin), as well as director David Fincher were on the scene.

So were Twitter users Mary Spiro and Raluca Musaloiu, who stopped to take some photos.

Hm. Kind of looks like Harvard

Jesse Eisenberg (center) is playing Mark Zuckerberg

Andrew Garfield (left) plays forgotten Facebook cofounder Eduardo Saverin

Mark Zuckerberg built Facebook in fall 2004, so the fall weather is historically accurate

Actual Johns Hopkins students woke to a funny site out their dorm windows

Nice camera

Leaving the dorm…

The guy on the right is probably director David Fincher, who also made Fight Club

Where Justin Timberlake? He plays Facebook's first president, Sean Parker, who wouldn't appear in scenes taking place at Harvard

The university has notified students that Facebook movie The Social Network will be filming on campus next week (reproduced below). The scenes will be filmed almost entirely night, in keeping with the work hours of your typical campus computer nerd-slash-startup founder. Johns Hopkins says the filming won't be disruptive, but we're not so sure: The first student to take a picture of Jesse Eisberg as Mark Zuckerberg and upload it to Facebook might just create a black hole of social media meta-ness that will devour us all. Which is why you should send your pictures here, instead.

UPDATE: Bad news, Johns Hopkins students: A university spokesman wrote to let us know that "Justin Timberlake isn't a part of the Harvard-based scenes being shot here. As I understand it, his character comes into play when the story moves to the West Coast." Since Timberlake plays Silicon Valley investor/entrepreneur Sean Parker, that makes total sense. Sorry to get your hopes up. Jesse Eisberg isn't so bad, though!

[via Blackbook]

Citing a quote from Sorkin himself, The Playlist reports the cast includes Armie Hammer from Gossip Girl; model Dakota Johnson (who is Griffith's daughter); Max Minghella of Agora; and male model Josh Pence. This goes beyond lead actors Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake and Andrew Garfield, who were already confirmed.

A quick look at the cast members, with some thoughts on who some of the new people might be portraying (all pics by Getty Images unless otherwise credited):

UPDATE: We've updated the entires for Hammer, Song and Pence. UPDATE: And Mara.

esse Eisenberg plays founder Mark Zuckerberg. He's got the curly hair and geeky look down well enough.

Justin Timberlake plays early Facebook adviser and Napster co-founder Sean Parker. (Insert Parker photo by Andrew Mager on Flickr.)

Andrew Garfield plays spurned co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

Brenda Song, of the Disney Channel, would appear to be a shoo-in to play Zuckerberg's girlfriend Priscilla Chan. UPDATE: One tipster tells us Chan does not appear in the script but that Saverin is supposed to have an Asian girlfriend, so perhaps Song is taking on that role.

Whomever model Josh Pence is playing, he's definitely not part of the Silicon Valley tech scene. How about the Winklevoss twins, two Olympic rowers from Harvard who accused Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for Facebook? UPDATE: That part is being played by Armie Hammer (see here). Perhaps Pence could be another Harvard kid?That would seem to work. Pic via Nous Model Management.

Dakota Johnson looks like the kind of girl you'd hope to meet during a night on the town in San Francisco. And Zuckerberg did escort that Victoria's Secret model away from a party there — at least according to author Ben Mezrich.

<pRooney Mara (The Winning Season) looks so downright nice. Zuckerberg's geek girl friend at Harvard, maybe? UPDATE: A tipster suggested Zuckerberg's sister Randi. Good call.Send us your guess.

Max Minghella — no idea who he might play. Thoughts?

Armie Hammer from Gossip Girl. UPDATE: He is playing the Winklevoss twins, Olympic rowers who sued Zuckerberg for stealing their idea for Facebook, according to a tweet from director Richard Kelly. Pic via

Then again, they knew who they were hiring: A man who, as Gaunabee's Cindy Casares notes, has never been one to subsume his own professional impulses, masturbatory or not, to those of his colleagues. Gaunabee recorded copious footage from the event, some of which is excerpted above.

Although repeated in a number of colorful permutations, Stone's point was fairly straightforward: most consumers are tasteless boors; the internet allows these morons to upload video; therefore internet video is shit and will never be "Fine Art." That an overwhelming number of these vulgarians failed to go and see Stone's last movie, making it a surprise box office failure despite such memorable lines as "don't get cute Turdblossom," only further establishes Stone's credibility as an arbiter of good taste and Fine Art.

The bottom line, the Wall Street Journal adds, is that Weinstein needs a string of hits like Basterds — or $50 million in new money. The latter could be tough given another thing the Journal is reporting: that Weinstein failed to pay back a $75 million bridge loan earlier this year and is just piling up interest on the money. Basterds has racked up an impressive $111 million at the box office but, as noted here previously, it isn't saving Weinstein's ass because all the proceeds have to be split with co-producer Universal Pictures.

Weinstein's hopes for rescue when the big budget, Oscar-bait musical Nine opens this year appear to be diminishing with the rumor mill churning with word of a troubled post-production.

Weinstein's best hope for salvation is to dig deep down, past where his soul would be, and grab hold of that internal, obnoxious genius that empowers him to turn decent movies into great films. It would appear that digging process has already begun.

Weathers will probably do more like one year, according to The Smoking Gun, although the time will be hardened by the fact that Weathers will have the least intimidating criminal record in the joint. "What are you in for?" "Mugging the shit out of a bunch of people. You?" "I stole DVDs from the mail and put them into my backpack everyday at work, until Netflix tipped off the USPS and I was busted on a surveillance video. I was caught RED HANDED. Geddit? Ha?"

A page of the plea agreement reprinted by the Smoking Gun refers to "the 3,012 recovered DVDs," implying that Weathers couldn't even fence the property he stole from the DVD mailing service, which is just as well: He faced $38,000 in restitution if he couldn't cough up the goods. Worst. Heist thriller. Ever.

(Pic via HackingNetflix on Flickr)

How does an obnoxiously over-the-top kid on digital helium land a feature film deal, as Fred has done, according to a casting call obtained by TubeFilter? By having the most, or now second-most, followers of anyone on Google's video site. And by playing perfectly to Hollywood's fantasy that the branded serials its traditional TV studios specialize in can be profitably replicated online: Fred, you see, earns a reported six figures off this cheaply-produced stuff.

Don't tell studio honchos that, marvels of nature like "Fred" and sharp wits like Ze Frank not withstanding, YouTube will forever be dominated by cat videos, plane crashes and other spontaneously-obtained footage. After all, we wouldn't want the "Fred"s of tomorrow to miss their big Hollywood paydays.

[via All Things D]

Jesse Eisberg kinda works as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, we guess. But how about Michael Cera, instead? With some hair-curling he'd have the look down, and he could have used the role to break free from the "twee teenaged dork" typecast and into the much more interesting "Asperger-level-antisocial teenaged computer nerd" role.

That's Andrew Garfield, of Boy A, as spurned co-founder Eduardo Saverin.

Got a better casting idea? Post it in the comments.

The AdWords contextual advertising system on Google's flagship search engine is responsible for the majority of the company's $20 billion plus in annual revenue. Its key selling point: it is relevant, user-friendly — and unobtrusive, keeping people from defecting to other search engines or blocking the ads. Now, reports Ad Age, Schmidt is offering "a select group of entertainment advertisers" — i.e. the Hollywood studios — the chance to buy video ads that would run alongside search results, territory once reserved for text ads. Miramax has tested the system, but otherwise Google has been shunned by the top Tinseltown dogs, selling to the likes of the Travel Channel and videogame maker Electronic Arts.

Google is hardly the only geek dissed by the glitterati: Yahoo tried hard to become a media convergence hub and failed; scores of music startups have gone down in flames or languished for want of workable licensing deals; even Apple has had big problems dealing with Hollywood. Heck, America Online bought a bunch of studios when it acquired Time Warner, and it still couldn't win over the moguls.

Our advice to Google: Hire some serious Hollywood talent, since Southern->Northern California transitions tend to work better than those in the other direction. John Lasseter, the creative leader at Pixar, was a Disney vet who moved to Northern California to work for George Lucas and then Steve Jobs, returning to Disney only when Jobs sold the company. Judging from Jobs' success launching the iTunes Music Store, it would appear Hollywood appeal is contagious. Maybe even for a guy as nerdy as Eric Schmidt.

(Pic: Schmidt, then-Yahoo CEO Terry Semel and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, June 2007. Getty Images.)

Sure, Twitter will end the year with around 12 million users, or roughly 7 percent of total people on the internet, many of them barely touching the service, according to an analysis by eMarketer. But Twitter is buzzy and trendy, lending it a certain authority when placed at the focal point of a spin campaign. "Twitter can't be stopped," a Weinstein marketer tells the Washington Post. "People will be Twittering during the opening credits," adds the president of Magnolia Pictures. "It's never been this easy to be this influential," says a guy who helped promote a Disney movie.

OK; how has Twitter-crit transformed the movie business in this, the online service's big year? Let's ask IMDB:

Clearly, crap movies don't stand a chance any more. Thank you, Twitter.

(Top pic: Meta.Live.Nu)

It's enough to make you suspect it was written by Tucker himself. But, as with the leaked clips from Max's film, it provides a service regardless of its authenticity: It baits Max's fratty target audience while giving everyone else a clue that they should run screaming from this movie, brah.

Prepare to have your heart melted:

There's no question Mezrich's 14-page book proposal was eyebrow-arching; it featured scenes in which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg ate koala on board the yacht of a Sun Microsystems exec and in which he's targeted by the FBI after hacking into a government website. But the claims have been challenged as factually incorrect, and Mezrich, who has admitted to fabrications in a prior book, has woven more questionable scenes into his final book.

Mezrich may not have much of a handle on the facts, but judging by Sorkin's reaction to his work, and a positive review of Sorkin's first screenplay draft, Mezrich knows how to set up an eminently watchable film. And given Facebook's nerdy history, it was probably inevitable the truth would have to be twisted to accomplish that goal.

[via Vanity Fair]

It was somewhere around 1985'ish...Sometime post-The Breakfast Club, but pre-Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I was in my senior year of high school with a head filled with contempt for anything that brought joy and solace to my fellow man, especially to my fellow teen man. MTV? Fascism unleashed. Live Aid? A sign we were entering the final days. Shoulder pads? Might as well be stapling patches of asbestos under your jackets with IVs sending it directly into your blood stream.

Yes, indeed. I wasn't in a mood to just sit quietly and go along with nothing. And least of all with John Hughes movies.

So one Saturday morning, when my friends Will, Joey and I took a table in the now-demolished Marjan's Deli in Brentwood, our jaws dropped to see our arch-nemesis sitting at the booth just across the tiny aisle from us. There we saw the destroyer of teendom himself, sitting with what appeared to be his wife and two young children.

While we stifled giggles and swallowed all the words we might have said to him, ("I guess this Breakfast Club will let anyone in") had we the guts, Joey peered closer and announced, that, in fact, although it looked almost like him, it was not the great auteur, just a guy who looked kinda like him. We all looked back and agreed, the man might be huge, but he was not Hughes.

With relief we settled in, relieve that we wouldn't have to confront on that morning any dangerous moral questions like, "Do you sell your soul if you eat lox, eggs and onions three feet away from a director whose work you despise?"

Getting comfortable again, we turned back to the work of le Hughes, talking over what bugged us so much about it. We discussed how he had ruined his brilliant subversive National Lampoon's Vacation short story, turning it into a mushy family film. We considered the racism of the Long Duk character in Sixteen Candles, Bender's laughable teen street talk in Sixteen Candles, the horrifying mock depth of the art gallery scene in Ferris Bueller. As we dug into the subject we grew more animated, more excited and, in the lovable manner of teen boys everywhere, incredibly loud

We were just diving into the "Twist and Shout" sequence when we glanced over at the next table. Two children looked at us, their eyes pools of sadness deep as infinite space itself. Across the table, their parents gaped at us, their faces frozen in horror and rage, as though saying, What kind of monsters are you? The neighboring tables, too, glared with hatred.

On closer inspection, taking a third look, perhaps, we realized, it was maybe John Hughes.

And at that moment I became a writer.

John Hughes made me realize then and there that if you were going to go around hating everything in the world, I needed to find away to express that that didn't shove it in the face of my target's children and just as important, didn't expose me to the risk of being tarred and feathered by an angry brunch mob in my neighborhood deli.

It occurred to me then and there, that of all the paths one could take in life, that of the written word, in the privacy of one's home, was calling out to me.

And in time, mellowed by the years, haunted by those children's eyes plaguing my sleep, I came to find myself laughing at part of Sixteen Candles. And the Randy Quaid scenes in the vacation movies.

The attached video, assembled by Gawker video wizard Mike Byhoff, alternates between Cera's role as precious bumbler George Michael in Arrested Development and his work as precious bumbler in Paper Heart Superbad, Juno and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. At least his preciousness is getting more sweary, over time. That's a form of growing up, right?

Another sign of maturation: Charlyne Yi has shot down rumors that she and Cera were real-life dating during the filming of Paper Heart, meaning Cera's been party to a cynical publicity stunt. How adult!

The video was uploaded to YouTube on July 24. The caption promotes the forthcoming book based on Rosenblat's life, The Apple, without noting that the book is a novel and the entire story told by Rosenblat in the video is a lie.

Rosenblat is speaking in the video to the producers of the movie version of his book, who have been steadfast in their determination to put his story — his made-up story — to film. Rosenblat repeats his old tale about a girl who threw him apples, even though he has since said his wife told him about throwing apples to some other boy in some other camp, and he just pretended it was him, but he believed it so it was OK. So he's now back to believing some made up imaginary thing. Positive thinking.

The New York Post's gossip column didn't have much to base its conclusion that Ritchie had given the sleuthing tale a homoerotic backstory except for Downey's quote in the News of the World earlier this year that his Holmes and Law's Watson are "two men who happen to be roommates, wrestle a lot and share a bed. It's bad-ass."

That was apparently enough to put conservative radio host and family-friendly movie critic Michael Medved into a full-blown gay panic. "There's not a seething, bubbling hunger to see straight stars impersonating homosexuals. ... Who is going to want to see Downey Jr. and Law make out? I don't think it would be appealing to women. Straight men don't want to see it."

Well, we got a hold of a copy of a script to see just how gay it is, and to Medved's relief (or secret disappointment?) there're no scenes of Holmes and Watson going Brokeback. Our version is dated March 18, 2008, so it may not be the final, final revision. But the only explicit sex mentioned is a half-naked post-coital shot of Downey and Rachel McAdams in bed. That doesn't mean, of course, that Ritchie didn't direct his actors to give the Holmes-Watson dynamic some sexual tension. Here's the script's gayest moment — a scene that comes early in the movie when Watson tells Holmes that he's getting married. I could see how it could be played gay, but be your own judge.

Click images for a larger, more legible version

The video clip above, from YouTube, is grainy, but TechCrunch's Mike Arrington assures readers it's in the final movie. I hadn't seen the film myself, unaware it touched on social networking, but Arrington writes that MySpace takes up a solid five minutes of the movie.

The treatment is brutal. Early in the clip, MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson asks Sandler if he actually uses the product. The star's reply: "No, no no. I fuck girls, Tom. I don't have time for that." When he goes on stage, the comic greets the MySpace crowd as "nerds" and then trashes their users: "They say the more friends you have on MySpace the less friends you have in real life." .

Sure, MySpace's competitors are insulted, too. But companies like Silicon Valley-based Facebook are fighting hard to avoid Hollywood; Facebook trashed Ben Mezrich's book about the company, The Accidental Billionaires, and by extension the Aaron Sorkin movie based on that book, calling it inaccurate.

But MySpace is based in Beverly Hills, close to Hollywood, and seems to have a better handle on the big picture: Being on the silver screen, in any context, means you're culturally relevant. Why not embrace the opportunity to make your virtual community a lot more real? (Via TechCrunch.)

We're reasonably sure this clip was provided to us as a promotional stunt by a production team convinced of its irrepressible awesomeness. Whatever; if the attached clip, and in particular the extensive toilet humor, doesn't make you run screaming from this film, there's nothing we can do for you anyway.

UPDATE: Max wrote in to urge we remove the clip:

That clip was not a promotional stunt, it was stolen illegally. Just take it down, you guys will be welcome to host the trailer as much as you want when it releases next week.