Zuckerberg movie The Social Network tops US box office

The Social Network has topped the US box office upon its release.

The film, directed by David Fincher, is about the CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, and how he founded the site and then steered it to a user base in excess of half a billion. Complete with much legal battling on the way.

It doesn’t portray Zuckerberg in a particularly flattering light, however, making him out to be nerdy and rather a back-stabber in his business dealings. Zuckerberg has distanced himself from the movie and labelled it “fiction”, according to a report in the Guardian.

Apparently it scooped some $23 million at the weekend, although that fell somewhat short of expectations. Critics have been all over the film, mind you; Metacritic has pegged it with a 97% average.

The phrase “movie of the year” has even been bandied about. And this from a film which has Justin Timberlake playing a major role as the Founder of Napster. The mind boggles. We shall reserve judgement until we’ve seen it, of course.