Adjustment Bureau director to helm Facebook-based thriller XOXO for producer Darren Aronofsky

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

We’ve already had “the Facebook movie” (THE SOCIAL NETWORK) – now it’s time for “the Facebook thriller movie.”  The former turned out both differently and better than just about anyone expected or planned it to; and while that may have been due to the combined might of Fincher/Sorkin, “the Facebook thriller movie” XOXO has an effective and talented team-up of its own.

To be produced by Darren Aronofsky and initially written on spec by Mark Heyman (BLACK SWAN), XOXO “is an elevated genre tale set in the world of Facebook” that tells the story of “an on-the-rise exec who’s engaged to be married but enjoys flirting online. He meets an alluring woman on Facebook and the two begin a virtual relationship, but the Internet romance begins seeping into the protag’s actual life in a deadly way.” The studio currently plans to make use of “stylzed visual sequences” to present the online interactions in a more cinematic fashion.

Director George Nolfi (THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU, writing supervisor on Schwarzenegger’s THE LAST STAND) will oversee a rewrite by Heyman – it is not currently known whether Nolfi will make this before or after his recently announced Cuban Missile Crisis project ONE MINUTE TO MIDNIGHT.

Reading about this news immediately brought to mind for me the opening scene of David Slade’s HARD CANDY – if Nolfi/Heyman can give us something even half as taut and quietly dangerous as that scene, XOXO will indeed be something special and well worth watching.  Here’s to hoping.

I can’t actually tell if the feeling of familiarity that strikes me when looking at this picture comes from having run it before or from liking it so damn much.  In other news, Nolfi should get Blunt for XOXO.    That sounds weird.