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Movie Rights Acquired for Google Film, Death of Wave Will Be a Tearjerker

by Amar Toor on August 20, 2010 at 04:52 PM

sergey brin in google movieNot to be outdone by Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founders of Google are reportedly getting the Hollywood treatment as well, thanks to a freshly inked movie deal.

According to Deadline, Groundswell Productions and producer John Morris have just acquired the movie rights to Ken Auletta's book, 'Googled: The End of the World As We Know it.' In the book, Auletta traces the rise of the Google brand, from an idealistic concept first dreamt up by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, to the digital cash cow that it is today. When Brin and Page began laying the Google groundwork as PhD students at Stanford, they held a pretty lofty code of ethics, and adhered to principles like, "You can make money without doing evil," and "You can be serious without a suit." The challenge for Morris and Groundswell CEO Michael London, however, will be to convert a comparatively feel-good story into compelling cinema.

The upcoming Mark Zuckerberg biopic, for example, is built around a conflict-driven narrative of cutthroat competition and bickering Harvard students. Producers of the still untitled Google film, on the other hand, will have to take a decidedly different cinematic approach. "The heart of the movie is their wonderful edict, don't be evil," London explains. "At a certain point in the evolution of a company so big and powerful, there are a million challenges to that mandate. Can you stay true to principles like that as you become as rich and powerful as that company has become?" London reassures, however, that his production team won't do anything to smear the name of either co-founder. "The intention is to be sympathetic to Sergey and Larry, and hopefully the film will be as interesting as the company they created," he says. We'll have to wait and see what London and Morris cook up, but it's a safe bet that whatever they create will be way better than 'Mafia Wars.'

Tags: film, films, google, google movie, GoogleMovie, Hollywood, larry page, LarryPage, movie, movies, sergey brin, SergeyBrin, the social network, the social network movie, TheSocialNetwork, TheSocialNetworkMovie

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