The sequel to The Social Network, set to hit theaters in October 2026, arrives squarely positioned as an early contender in the 2027 Academy Awards race and brings together three of the most significant acting talents of the past decade: Jeremy Strong, Jeremy Allen White, and Mikey Madison. Together, they anchor a story that no longer looks at the birth of a startup, but at the reality of the world’s largest social network — now connecting more than 3 billion users worldwide.

If David Fincher’s 2010 film, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield, chronicled the rise of Facebook — its ambition, speed, and fractures — The Social Reckoning begins at the opposite end of the timeline. The question here is no longer how the empire was built, but what it became.

Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, the new film turns its attention to the inner workings of a company already colossal, powerful, and opaque. Jeremy Strong takes on the role of Mark Zuckerberg, no longer the young prodigy, but the executive at the center of a system accused of prioritizing profit, engagement, and growth over safety, mental health, and democracy. Jeremy Allen White plays Jeff Horwitz, the Wall Street Journal reporter whose investigations were central to exposing the company’s internal documents.

At the center of it all is Frances Haugen, portrayed by Mikey Madison.

Haugen is an engineer and product manager who worked on Facebook’s civic integrity team and who, in 2021, chose to break her silence. She was the one who gathered and leaked thousands of internal documents — later known as the Facebook Files — revealing that the company was aware of the harmful effects of its products, particularly on teenagers, misinformation, and radicalization, and yet consistently chose not to act in any meaningful structural way.

The consequences were immediate: hearings in the U.S. Senate, the UK Parliament, and the European Parliament, regulatory investigations, lawsuits, and a permanent shift in how Facebook came to be publicly perceived. More than a leak, it was an institutional shockwave.

The film’s origins lie precisely in that moment of rupture. The Social Reckoning is based on the book Broken Code, by Jeff Horwitz, and functions as a moral continuation of The Social Network: if the original film asked “how did it all begin?”, this one asks the more uncomfortable question — who pays the price?

For Mikey Madison, Frances Haugen represents more than a major role. It signals a clear artistic repositioning. Far removed from impulsive or provocative characters, Madison embodies a woman who is technical, methodical, and solitary — someone who fully understands what is at stake when she decides to make public what was meant to remain hidden. It is a performance built on restraint, internal tension, and consequence — the kind of turn that often defines an awards season narrative.

By bringing together Strong, Allen White, and Madison, Sorkin shapes a film that promises less myth-making and more confrontation. Less fascination with genius, and greater attention to the fractures of power.

If The Social Network captured the spirit of a world on the rise, The Social Reckoning arrives as a film already calibrated for the 2027 Oscar conversation — determined to face the moment when the bill finally comes due.