We’re not sure anyone saw the success of “The Social Network” coming. A year ago the Aaron Sorkin-written, David Fincher-directed film was still being skeptically referred to as “the Facebook movie”, even by fans of its filmmakers. A year later the film has topped over $200 million in worldwide grosses and has become an unstoppable awards magnet. Producers Scott Rudin, Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti are clearing space on their mantel for their forthcoming Oscars but are already hoping for lightning to strike twice with their next outing.
Deadline reports that the trio are reteaming with Sony to adapt a forthcoming book called “Sex on the Moon” by author Ben Mezrich. If you didn’t know, Mezrich previously wrote the book “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal” which was the source material for Aaron Sorkin’s script for “The Social Network” as well as “Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions” which was made (less successfully) into the Kevin Spacey produced and starring film “21.
Amazon has the sort of ridiculous sounding synopsis:
Thad Roberts, a fellow in a prestigious NASA program had an idea—a romantic, albeit crazy, idea. He wanted to give his girlfriend the moon. Literally.Thad convinced his girlfriend and another female accomplice, both NASA interns, to break into an impregnable laboratory at NASA’s headquarters—past security checkpoints, an electronically locked door with cipher security codes, and camera-lined hallways—and help him steal the most precious objects in the world: the moon rocks. But what does one do with an item so valuable that it’s illegal even to own? And was Thad Roberts—undeniably gifted, picked for one of the most competitive scientific posts imaginable, a possible astronaut—really what he seemed? Mezrich has pored over thousands of pages of court records, FBI transcripts, and NASA documents and has interviewed most of the participants in the crime to reconstruct this Ocean’s Eleven–style heist, a madcap story of genius, love, and duplicity that reads like a Hollywood thrill ride.”
Mezrich seems to be carving out a career writing the kind of fast paced “thrill rides” that Hollywood just loves to adapt but we’re guessing Fincher isn’t going to be returning any calls on this one. And we’ve heard that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but this is just getting silly. –Cory Everett
