Tinseltown wakes up to spin yarns of the web

It's taken a while, but Hollywood finally seems to have woken up to this internet thing. As noted in today's autumn movie preview, two major releases focusing on web pioneers are on their way. David Fincher's The Social Networkaddresses the rise of Facebook and the craze for social networking. In a seedier vein, George Gallo's Middle Menconcerns itself with the early days of internet pornography.

Now, it emerges that Ken Auletta's book Googled: The End of the World As We Know It, a study of the most unavoidable of search engines, is to be made into a film by producer John Morris. The fulcrum of the story will be the relationship between Sergey Brin and Larry Page, two boffins who devised Google while still at Stanford University.

The Social Networkhas already scared up some controversy. Sources at Facebook suggest that Mark Zuckerberg, founder of the firm, is queasy about some of the changes made to his life story. A New York Timesstory pondered dilemmas faced by producer Scott Rudin. "As of this week, Mr Rudin said, one remaining question was to what extent the finished film would include a scene that depicted Sean Parker, the Napster co-founder who was heavily involved with Facebook's early history, delivering his dialogue while a pair of teenage girls offer partygoers lines of cocaine from bared breasts." Zuckerberg and Parker remember it differently.