Columbia no longer playing Soderbergh/Pitt’s ‘Moneyball’
I was never too keen on the subject matter – The Oakland A’s general manager who turned a small market baseball team into a winner by bucking conventional wisdom with statistical analysis – but I’m surprised to hear that Columbia Pictures has put Steven Soderbergh’s Brad Pitt starring Moneyball into limited turnaround. This means Columbia won’t be picking up the tab but Soderbergh is free to set it up elsewhere. However, if Soderbergh is unable to find new financing by Monday, Columbia could continue without him.
According to Peter Bart and Michael Fleming’s Variety BF Deal Memo blog, Columbia head Amy Pascal found the final draft of Steven Zaillian’s script diverged too much from the original she approved. She pulled out just 96 hours before the film was set to begin production.
We don’t ordinarily care too much about the business end of movies, but if Soderbergh gets booted off the project, that would pretty much be the end of LiC’s interest in the movie even if Brad Pitt sticks around.
Filed under: News
Tags: Amy Pascal, Brad Pitt, Moneyball, Steven Soderbergh
To paraphrase Nathaniel Rogers, the business end of a movie-making is a cruel, soul-crushing machine. Same goes for the business end of any artistic or creative endeavor.
“…Columbia head Amy Pascal found the final draft of Steven Zaillian’s script diverged too much from the original she approved.”
Did the final draft get rid of all the baseball stuff? That would suit me fine. Because if there’s anything more exciting than baseball, it’s a bunch of stats and math about baseball, right?
I’ve only seen two baseball movies I enjoyed much, but not sure they count because they were more about cheating and fucking than they were about baseball.
I only hope this brings us a step closer to Ocean’s Fourteen.
“I’ve only seen two baseball movies I enjoyed much, but not sure they count because they were more about cheating and fucking than they were about baseball.”
Have you seen Ryan Fleck’s and Anna Boden’s recent film, SUGAR?
Like their previous film, HALF NELSON, it is a rather impressive film, which trascends the “sports movie” label and creates a surprisingly interesting storyline for those that don’t really care about the game to begin with. Even though it is not really about cheating or fucking. But, hey…
Sugar was very good. Yeah, not really about cheating and fucking, but it’s not really about baseball either.
I’m not sure what direction Moneyball was going in. I trust I would’ve liked it because it’s Soderbergh, but there was something unappealing about the whole project…and I say this as a guy who likes baseball.