Oscar outlook

‘King’s Speech,’ ‘Social Network’ await challengers

By David Germain

AP Movie Writer

LOS ANGELES

Two dramas unfolding in a new world of global communications could emerge as front-runners at the Academy Awards.

Director David Fincher’s “The Social Network” is set in modern times as the founders of the website Facebook battle over their creation. Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” takes place in the 1920s and ’30s as Queen Elizabeth II’s dad struggles with his speech impediment at a time when the royal family is counted on to voice reassurance through the new medium of radio.

“The Social Network” has almost universal acclaim, a hip subject and impressive box-office results since it opened Oct. 1. “The King’s Speech” does not open until late November, but it’s an old-fashioned awards contender, a classy period piece that has been an audience favorite at film festivals for its heart and humor.

“We didn’t realize it was a comedy as well as a drama. We had no idea people enjoyed it on so many levels,” said Colin Firth, who stars as the stammering King George VI, reluctantly taking the throne after his brother abdicates and finding unexpected kinship with a wily Australian speech therapist (Geoffrey Rush).

“It ticks a lot of boxes that are notorious for being supposed nomination bait, you know — monarchs and disabilities and that sort of thing. But it has very little to do with that as far as I’m concerned. The substance of this is to do with this friendship.”

“The Social Network” also deals with friendship — the unraveling kind. Jesse Eisenberg stars as Facebook mastermind Mark Zuckerberg, playing him as an abrasive, socially inept genius who ends up in ferocious legal feuds with his former best buddy (Andrew Garfield) and others claiming he stiffed them on the site’s proceeds.

Fincher said he’s hopeful but that Oscar talk is premature. “Social Network” screenwriter Aaron Sorkin is even more tightlipped about awards.

“I just won’t talk about it,” Sorkin said.

“I can tell you that right now, what means something to me is that people who have seen the movie seem very moved by it. It’s everything we could have hoped for when we began the project.”

Nominations come out Jan. 25, with the Oscars presented Feb. 27.