Moneyball Tagged Articles at Cinematical
Who Will Direct Brad Pitt in 'Moneyball'?
Filed under: Sports », Deals », Brad Pitt »
It's the ninth inning, two outs and the bases are loaded. The famous starting pitcher has been sent to the showers. Brad Pitt is the catcher and is waiting on the mound with the manager, who is calling for the ace reliever to save the game. And his name is Bennett Miller. Steven Soderbergh was three days from the start of filming on true-life underdog baseball flick Moneyball when he was unexpectedly yanked from the director's chair by Columbia Pictures head honcho Amy Pascal. She didn't like the latest script revisions, so Aaron Sorkin was hired to make sure Moneyball takes a more mainstream, less documentary approach than what Soderbergh evidently had in mind. To complete the task, Variety reports that Columbia is now ready to put the ball in the hands of experienced mainstream director Bennett Miller ... whoops, that's not right.
Miller may not be well-known, but he directed the critically-acclaimed, true-life Capote four years ago, so maybe the studio feels that he has an affinity for the genre. Philip Seymour Hoffman won an Academy Award for his performance in that film, and Miller was nominated, so, again, that speaks to his ability to work with actors. Capote was a very good picture, in part because Miller took a measured, low-key approach. Will that work with Moneyball? In the best of all possible worlds for Columbia, Moneyball, based on a non-fiction sports book by Michael Lewis, will follow the audience-pleasing, financial successful path of another movie based on a non-fiction sports book by Michael Lewis: The Blind Side.
Steven Soderbergh Lands a 'Knockout'
Filed under: Action », Drama », Music & Musicals », Deals »
The acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh may be one of the most respected men in the business, but even he seems to have trouble finding a little extra cash these days. Now we all know what happened with is true-life sports tale, Moneyball, but by all accounts that isn't the only film that he is having trouble securing funding for. But on the bright side, it turns out it was much easier to sell studios a sexy spy thriller than it was a tale of number-crunchers. According to Variety, Lionsgate has snapped up Soderbergh's next slated flick, Knockout and secured financing for the action drama with Relativity Media offering to foot the bill.The film is being described as in the "vein of La Femme Nikita" and will star Gina Carano. Soderbergh will be working with Lem Dobbs, who also worked on The Limey to write the script. Now Carano might be a household name for fans of Mixed Martial Arts, but for the world at large, a lead role in a Soderbergh film will probably be a much better introduction for the famed fighter. The director seems to be continuing to hire 'non-traditional' actors in his films, and if Soderbergh is looking to save some cash, luckily Carano will be able to do her own stunts.
As strange as a 'Soderbergh action film' may sound, it's hardly the wackiest idea he's had lately. After the jump; status reports on two of Soderbergh's other films...
Directors We Love: Steven Soderbergh
Filed under: Comedy », Drama », Independent », Fandom », Brad Pitt », George Clooney »
He is, basically, the antithesis of a Comic-Con filmmaker, more interested in infusing celluloid with his personal vision than with dazzling moviegoers through visual effects. Not that director Steven Soderbergh is adverse to using advanced technology, or sprinkling computerized wizardry upon the narrative like fairy dust, or including breathless action sequences in his films. Quite to the contrary. Ocean's Thirteen, for example, fairly bursts with playful touches of meta-reality, from handwritten monetary sums dancing around a wide shot of unexpected casino winners to 60s-style split-screen montages, and contains a breathless series of escapades in which no one pulls a gun -- it's all talk.
Thus, it was distressing to hear that Soderbergh spoke with an "air of tired resignation" in an telephone conversation with The Guardian UK a while back. He said he could "see the end" of his career, with just "three or four years worth of stuff" that he hopes to be able to do, and then he "may just disappear." He now wishes he hadn't made the subtle and powerful Che; the production was so intense that he and everyone else "got scarred ... a little bit."
It's understandable that the physical demands of making Che -- the equivalent of two feature-length films -- on a 76-day schedule for the comparatively small sum of $58 million would exhaust anybody. And it may be that the last-minute script disagreements that resulted in his losing the Moneyball baseball flick gig with Brad Pitt were laying him low as well. Some people are angry at him for indulging himself and ignoring the audience, somehow squandering opportunities for other directors to make "smart movies for adults."
'Moneyball' Still Rolling at Sony, Aaron Sorkin Up to Bat
Filed under: Drama », Sports », Deals », Sony », Celebrities and Controversy », Scripts », DIY/Filmmaking », Newsstand », Brad Pitt »
If you were absolutely heartbroken at the loss of Sony's Moneyball, cheer up! It's still alive and swinging. Variety reports that the project has been revived with some new talent, though now it's in desperate need of a new director. The good news is that the man in charge of repairing it all is none other than Aaron Sorkin, who is riding high at Sony thanks to The Social Nework. Everyone's favorite screenwriter is taking a crack at Steve Zaillian's original script, and is expected to have it finished by August. Sorkin is steering it back to the film the studio wanted all along: a nice sports film that focuses on Billy Beane, the Oakland A's, underdogs, and statistics. It's also retained the services of Brad Pitt, who is still attached to play Beane.
The bad but not altogether unexpected news is that Steven Soderbergh is off the project. His draft took a more documentary approach that Sony was certain would fail with moviegoers. I guess we'll never know, but I can't really blame Sony for being afraid of an approach that used an animated Bill James character. At least the director has a million other projects he can turn to for comfort. Will it be Making Jack Falcone? Liberace? Cleo? None of the above and out of nowhere? Very possibly.
Columbia Postpones Soderbergh's 'Moneyball'
Filed under: Sports », Deals », Brad Pitt »
You know things are bad in Hollywood when a production gets shut down just three days before it's supposed to start filming -- and when the production in question stars Brad Pitt and is directed by Steven Soderbergh. The last three movies those guys made together all had the word Ocean's in the title. What gives?Well, according to Variety, Columbia Pictures chair Amy Pascal found the latest script revisions for Moneyball so different from what she'd originally greenlighted that she pulled the plug on Friday. Filming was supposed to start in Phoenix on Monday. This is the equivalent of canceling a flight while the plane is accelerating down the runway. Those script revisions must have really been something. Maybe Soderbergh had decided to turn it into a four-hour biography of Pancho Villa.
Moneyball is based on a nonfiction book that uses the 2002 Oakland A's baseball team as a case study for examining how less wealthy teams can compete with richer ones (like the Yankees) by hiring players whose statistics in certain areas -- but not the ones usually considered, like batting averages and RBIs -- indicate they'll perform well. Yes, it's a book about statistics. You can see why a movie would be a hard sell to begin with. But the book was a bestseller, appealing to baseball fans (who tend to love statistics) and readers who enjoy a good underdog story. Pitt was to play A's manager Billy Beane, whose theories about which players would be most valuable went against conventional wisdom but were ultimately vindicated.
Soderbergh and Pitt Reteam for Baseball Flick
Filed under: Casting », Deals », Newsstand »
On second thought, maybe we'll hold off on filming that 3D Cleopatra musical starring Catherine Zeta Jones and, instead, film something with a little more commercial appeal that stars, say, Brad Pitt. According to Variety, Steven Soderbergh has decided to put that Cleopatra flick on the backburner in favor of Moneyball, based on the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis. David Frankel (Marley & Me) was originally tapped to direct (off a script from Steven Zaillian), but there's no word on what happened there.
Based on a very real story, Pitt -- who worked with Soderbergh on all the Ocean's films -- will star as Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane who, back in 2002, helped his small-market team win over 100 games by using a sophisticated computer analysis system. I'm not entirely sure how cinematic and exciting a film about behind-the-scenes baseball statistics will be, but if you've got Brad Pitt in the lead role, then anything is possible, right? I remember when the Athletics threw together that miracle year, and even though they didn't make it past the first round of the playoffs, it was still exciting to watch this team of nobodies defy the odds -- and I'm sure Soderbergh's film will tap into that classic "from nothing to something" sports storyline.
What do you think -- is this a story worth telling on the big screen?
Brad Pitt Takes On 'Moneyball', Too
Filed under: Sports », Casting »
Brad Pitt's got a busy schedule. Not only has he attached himself to George Miller's outer-space adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey, but he's also planning to star in an adaptation of Michael Lewis's non-fiction Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. Moneyball is an insider account of the way Billy Beane put together the 2002 Oakland Athletics, using the power of scouting and sabremetrics to overcome a financial disadvantage. (The A's went 103-59 that year, winning the division but losing in the first round of the playoffs to the Minnesota Twins.) It's kind of a nerdy book, as you can imagine -- the A's defy the odds... through the magic of computerized statistical analysis! -- but it does have the classic underdog framework that has done wonders for a lot of sports movies. Pitt would be great for the role of Beane, who was 40 years old when the events of the book took place.David Frankel will direct the film as his follow-up to The Devil Wears Prada and this holiday season's Marley & Me. Steven Zaillian, whose last job was American Gangster, will write the screenplay. It's a good story, if not a terribly cinematic one; I'm curious to see what they do with it.
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