Aaron Sorkin: Motivation to Tackle Facebook

Sept. 24, 2010— -- From the quotable monologue of "A Few Good Men" to the crackling dialogue of "The West Wing," there is no mistaking Aaron Sorkin's writing style. As one of Hollywood's most successful writers, Sorkin is back in the spotlight with the upcoming film, "The Social Network," the story of internet behemoth Facebook's controversial founding.

Sorkin said he jumped at the chance to pen the story of Facebook's creator and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and the website that changed the world.

"I knew immediately that I wanted to do it. It was the fastest I've ever said yes to anything," he said.

The movie, which premieres on Friday, Oct. 1, already has garnered enormous media buzz and is expected to top the nationwide box office.

In an interview with "Nightline's" Bill Weir, Sorkin said it was the characters involved in Facebook's much-debated creation that drew him to write the screenplay.

"It's a classical story -- these themes of loyalty and betrayal, of friends and enemies," he said. "It immediately struck me as something that Aeschylus would write or that Shakespeare would write."

No stranger to lawsuits, Facebook has been under fire almost since its inception. In November 2003, Harvard students Tyler Winklevoss, Cameron Winklevoss and Divya Narendra sued Zuckerberg, claiming he had stolen the code written for ConnectU, another social media website the group had been working on, to launch Facebook on his own.