Reckoning with Reckoning
16 years after The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin’s sequel The Social Reckoning drops first trailer. Jury’s out.
Also this week:
DJI and Insta360 go to war patents, Tribeca screens a $2000 AI feature and Jamie Oliver enters the microdrama cookhouse. Oh and OpenAI is shooting for an Emmy.
Render Reel
Netflix told theatrical purists to work somewhere else. Film chief Dan Lin said there are filmmakers who still want theatrical and “we’ve accepted we just won’t work with” them. Exceptions exist for specific titles, but the message is as blunt as corporate messaging gets. Netflix is not becoming a theatrical studio.
Lionsgate turned John Wick into AI inventory. The studio took an equity stake in Runway and is developing AI-generated short-form projects built on existing IP, potentially including John Wick, Saw, and The Hunger Games. Your favourite mid-2000s action franchise might just become a vertical content farm.
Tribeca screens a $2,000 AI feature. Dreams of Violets, a 75-minute AI-generated film by Ash and Pooya Koosha, was built with Kling, Claude, and Gemini. Tribeca co-founder Jane Rosenthal called it “a powerful example of deeply human storytelling.” A story that would have required a six-figure budget and a full crew five years ago.
OpenAI is campaigning for an Emmy. Its tech talk show TBPN shifted into Outstanding Variety Series consideration just as nominations voting opened. Not a typo. OpenAI are buying a seat at the prestige table.
The myth of the director’s cut
Far Out Magazine ran a piece on ten mythical director’s cuts you’ll never see, and it’s a good reminder that the “director’s cut” has become more myth than an actual thing.
Brando’s three-hour One-Eyed Jacks was gutted by Paramount. Lynch disowned Dune entirely and Fincher still hates Alien 3 more than you do.
Scorsese admitted in his recent doc that he doesn’t believe in director’s cuts and accepted Weinstein’s cut of Gangs of New York as the only version. The most heartbreaking is that Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America was intended as two three-hour films.
Warner Bros released a 139-minute chronological cut but the original five-hour version is likely lost forever.
Jamie Oliver is making a vertical microdrama. The Jamie Oliver Group is developing a scripted short-form series with Baby Teeth as part of a push into IP and formats. A chef’s media company producing vertical drama sounds like a sentence generated by an algorithm, but here we are.
DJI and Insta360 are in a patent war. DJI is suing over the Insta360 Luna Ultra, alleging it copies Osmo Pocket design and tracking tech. Insta360 counter-sued, targeting DJI’s Ronin and Osmo lines. This lands as DJI faces looming US restrictions, which means the creator camera market could get squeezed by patent law and geopolitics at the same time.
UK distributor Elysian Film Group Distribution is being liquidated. Danny Perkins’ distribution arm, launched in 2020 with CAA backing, is now in formal insolvency with outstanding debts. Elysian distributed Studio Ghibli’s The Boy and the Heron in the UK but couldn’t survive the economics of independent distribution.. a story becoming all too familiar.
Shanghai built an AI backlot and invited filmmakers to use it. The fest launched AI BACKLOT with Hailuo AI and not as a screening category but as a live production lab where filmmakers work with the tools in public. While Cannes and Tribeca debate whether to programme AI films, Shanghai skipped the argument and built the infrastructure.
Sony makes 65mm modular. Sony unveiled RIALTO 65, a 65mm-format sensor block for the VENICE 2, with a release planned for the first half of 2027. The interesting part is not just the bigger sensor or the 9.6K open gate capture. It is the way large-format prestige is being turned into an upgrade layer on an existing ecosystem instead of a sealed-off rental-house religion.
Remote dailies become acquisition territory. MTI Film acquired Mango NewEdit, a Burbank company specialising in remote dailies and Avid editorial services. Not sexy, but very relevant. Consolidation is moving into the invisible infrastructure of production, where post houses buy workflow capacity rather than just colour rooms and finishing talent.
The Social Reckoning trailer had one job and it might not have done it
The original Social Network trailer is regularly called one of the best of the century.
Scala’s cover of “Creep,” and the snappy edit all convinced everyone that a film about the guy who made Facebook would be worth our time.
That was its only job and it nailed it.
Sixteen years later, the Social Reckoning trailer has to convince you there’s a film here you haven’t already watched play out on cable news and in congressional hearings.
The Sorkin dialogue is sharp as ever. Jeremy Strong as Zuckerberg calling himself a “professional defendant” and the line about being “post-government” are standouts.
But sharp writing isn’t the same thing as a reason to exist.
The other thing the Social Network trailer nails is establishing what the “social network” actually is. Not Facebook, but Mark and his circle of friends and associates, and the slow spiral of reducing that circle to one.
The question the Reckoning trailer never really answers is.. what reckoning?
Haugen (the whistleblower) leaked the documents and Congress held hearings. The Wall Street Journal published everything and then Zuckerberg renamed Facebook to Meta, got into MMA, and came out richer than before.
Is that a reckoning?
Out October 9. We’ll see.
Retail Therapy: Your tripod has a belt clip now
The Joby HandyPod Clip Extend is a tiny tripod, selfie stick and handheld grip that folds down to under 6.5 inches and weighs 106g. Can support a phone, action cam and compact cameras under 1kg.
Also has a carabiner leg so you can clip it to your bag and “mantis mode” for clinging to fences or railings, which is either very useful or a warning sign that every public object is now content infrastructure.
Available from Joby for around $35.