Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Mum On 'Social Network' Oscar Nods

The creators and cast of "The Social Network" were in major freak-out-excitement mode on Tuesday when Oscar nominations were announced.

Continuing a very successful awards-season streak, the film picked up eight Academy Award nominations on Tuesday morning — making it this year's third most-nominated Oscar contender behind "The King's Speech" with 12 and "True Grit" with 10, and tied with "Inception." Among the categories "The Social Network" will compete in on Oscar night next month will be Best Picture, Best Director (David Fincher), Best Actor (Jesse Eisenberg), Best Adapted Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin) and Best Score (Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross).

Fincher, racking up his second career nomination, said he was "very grateful and humbled" by the nods and incredibly proud of his work on the film adaptation of the story of Facebook's founding.

One person who wasn't joining in the group hug was Facebook founder and twentysomething billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, who isn't portrayed in the best light in the film. A representative for the site told The Hollywood Reporter , "We've said all we're going to say about the movie and the books ... We've moved on from this discussion, and we think others have, too."

While Zuckerberg wasn't exactly up for offering any congratulations, Eisenberg said he'd heard that the Internet mogul had thought the Oscar nominee had done a "nice job" portraying him in the movie.

The film depicts Zuckerberg as a ruthless social climber who founded the popular social-networking website mainly to become more popular with the ladies — an image that the Facebook starter has rejected. He's mostly kept mum on the movie, though he did tell Oprah Winfrey in September that he took some members of his staff to see a screening. "It's a movie, it's fun ... I can promise you, this is my life so I know it's not that dramatic," he said. "The last six years have been a lot of coding and focus and hard work, but maybe it would be fun to remember it as partying and all this crazy drama."

Check out everything we've got on "The Social Network."

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