Facebook has somewhere in the neighbourhood of half a billion users, so it's hardly surprising that the "Facebook movie" has been one of the most buzzed-about projects in Hollywood. Then again, basing an entire film on a web site -- even one as epochal as Facebook -- is hardly a guarantee of artistic and/or box-office success.

But the story behind the social networking site and its phenomenal rise has plenty of human drama, as evidenced in Ben Mezrich's 2009 book, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding Of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal.   

Entitled The Social Network, the picture stars the always-engaging Jesse Eisenberg as FB honcho Mark Zuckerberg, who created the first iteration of Facebook while at Harvard in 2003. (The pic co-stars Justin Timberlake as one of Zuckerberg's collaborators.) Slated for an October release, the movie is written by Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) and helmed by David Fincher, the auteur behind indelible films like from Seven to Fight Club to the haunting and underrated Zodiac. (Fincher also directed The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which got copious love from the Academy, but which I found to be an utter grind.)

The trailer for The Social Network (see above) was released last week, and while it reveals nothing of Fincher's visual brilliance, it makes a compelling case for this as a serious, downright suspenseful drama. Is Zuckerberg truly as wicked and ruthless as the trailer insinuates? Who knows. And since this isn't purporting to be a documentary, who cares?

The newest detail is that Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) will be providing the score. Fincher apparently approached the Rez, who put a number of other projects -- and some well-deserved down-time -- on hold to craft some appropriately tense music.

"I've always loved David's work but quite honestly I wondered what would draw him to tell [this] story. When I actually read the script and realized what he was up to, I said goodbye to that free time I had planned," Reznor said yesterday on the Nine Inch Nails news feed. Reznor's impression of the film? "It's really f---ing good. And dark!"

Excellent prospects, indeed.