Aaron Sorkin Admits He Sucks as a Director After Latest Box Office Bomb

The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin may be one of the top ranked screenwriters alive in Hollywood today, but he is now admitting that he just isn’t that great as a film director. Sorkin recently took the stage at the Newport Beach Film Festival to talk about his long and award-filled career. During the talk, he noted that he has found directing to be a harder challenge than he thought it would be, adding that he does not feel that he is learning well even with experience. Sorkin’s latest screed against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, The Social Reckoning, is not doing well at the box office, despite the success of his previous effort, The Social Contract. The sequal film is flopping with a 54 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and brought in a mere $15 million at the box office against a $42 million production budget. Of course, Sorkin has had considerably better luck with screenwriting. He is the pen behind hits such as A Few Good Men, The American President, Charlie Wilson’s War, among others, not to mention his turns at the helm of the 1990s hit TV series, The West Wing. But while he feels he “gets” screenwriting awfully easily, Sorkin admits being less sure of himself behind the camera. On the stage in Newport Beach, he noted that hopeful writers often ask him if screenwriting is something that can be taught. He went on to apply the question to directing, and said, “the answer is, ‘There are parts of screenwriting — important parts — that can be taught and can be learned, but there are parts that can’t be. And those parts that can’t be? That’s usually what we mean when we use the word talent.’ I’m very worried that the parts of directing that I’m not good at are those parts that you can’t learn.” Sorkin explained that he has found out that he doesn’t have that elusive “talent” as a director, and added, “I was surprised by how little of the science of filmmaking I’d managed to absorb. I have no visual sensibility, it turns out.” He likened it to a football coach who might tell the sports media that he had all the elements to win a game, but that it just didn’t come together and he inevitably lost the game. “That’s how I feel about directing. There are things that I’ve been doing right along the way. Just give me one more chance, and one of these days I’ll be able to put it all together,” Sorkin told the audience. Follow Warner Todd Huston Facebook at: Facebook.com/Warner.Todd.Huston, Truth Social @WarnerToddHuston, or at X/Twitter @WTHuston