Moneyball (Bennett Miller, 2011)

[Antoine Doinel]

So this starts shooting on June 11th. It will be partially animated and feature actual ball players from the era playing themselves. This is either going to be totally terrible or totally awesome.

[Tom Hagen]

Wow. Animated Bill James. The baseball nerd lobe of my brain and the film geek lobe are overloading right now! I wonder if he will get guys still playing like Youkilis and Swisher.

[wattsup32]

I can't see a way that this can possibly be good. That said, I love Soderbergh, Bill James, Baseball, and that book. So, I'll watch it--Probably over and over.

[flyonthewall2983]

Even though this technology may very well fall flat on it's face, it's certainly a step ahead of other sports/period movies where they cut from a scene to an old game from the 60's or 70's that is supposedly in progress.

[Eric WK]

Despite my adoration for the book (and baseball and sabermetrics and Mr. James, etc.) and the fact that I find most of Soderbergh's work at least interesting, I'm not entirely sure how successful this will be. In any event, it's certainly something I'll keep my eye on.

[Antoine Doinel]

So with shooting supposed to start tomorrow, Sony has put the film in turnaround after Columbia Pictures head Amy Pascal read the final draft of the script which is apparently quite different from earlier versions.

[Jeff]

So with shooting supposed to start tomorrow, Sony has put the film in turnaround after Columbia Pictures head Amy Pascal read the final draft of the script which is apparently quite different from earlier versions.

Oh, for fuck's sake. I was so looking forward to this, and I'll take the judgment of Soderbergh and Zaillian over Amy Pascal any day. Let's hope another studio with more sense picks it up over the weekend.

[dx23]

Sodebergh pulls the plug on Moneyball.

[Vic Pardo]

So with shooting supposed to start tomorrow, Sony has put the film in turnaround after Columbia Pictures head Amy Pascal read the final draft of the script which is apparently quite different from earlier versions.

Anne Thompson reports on it here.

I'm sure there are many cases where the final shooting script is often different from the one the studio greenlit, but I'm betting the studio generally overlooks it if the new script is good or if they want to keep a particular package of stars, director, franchise, etc. in play.

Can anyone here think of another instance where a film's production was halted at the last minute for script reasons?

[Antoine Doinel]

I think the real reason has less to do with the script than with Amy Pascal not wanting to justify the expenditure of $50 million dollars on a partially animated baseball movie, with a funky narrative, directed by Steven Soderbergh. Given that Paramount just did an executive shuffle, and the rest of Hollywood are tightening their belts, I think Pascal is probably going to go after more sure bets to keep her hob. There was no way Moneyball was going to do anything but bomb at the box office (and no, Brad Pitt is not a guarantee of money, unless it's the Ocean's films are something broadly mainstream), while hoping to eventually break even on DVD.

[Jeff]

Jeffrey Wells has uploaded the December version of the script (before the changes that freaked Pascal out). Get it before they make him take it down.

[flyonthewall2983]

I hope this doesn't defer from either Brad or Steven doing a baseball movie in the long run.

[Antoine Doinel]

Carson Reeves has read both the Zaillian script and the Soderbergh revision that got the film canned, and offers his insights on both here.

[ellipsis7]

Well that was pretty definitive - understand why it was canned now...

[knives]

Soderbergh's sounds like it would have been funny, but I understand that that might have turned real bad.

[Antoine Doinel]

In this throwaway Variety piece, it says Columbia is still looking to make the film. The Playlist has some really interesting news that hints that the reasons for the film falling apart had only very little to do with Pascal not liking the script. Another blog had posted - and then quickly redacted - an email that seemed to indicate a plethora of issues involving the MLB, interpersonal drama and "script authenticity". If the movie doesn't come out, I hope there is a great article or book down the line about what happened.

[Antoine Doinel]

The NY Times is reporting today that the film is back in development but that both Soderbergh and Pitt are off the project. Apparently, Soderbergh's script was the one that met with the approval of MLB while Zaillian's was turned down for taking too many liberties with the facts. The LA Times details some of the differences in the script, and has an interview with Amy Pascal.

[Antoine Doinel]

Dave Poland comes to Soderbergh's defense and asks some really pointed questions about the studio spin that has been running in recent press reports.

[Antoine Doinel]

Aaron Sorkin is has been called up to write yet another draft of the script.

[Jeff]

Looks like Bennett Miller (Capote) may be taking over directing duties.

[Mr. Ned]

This is stupid. The project should have died when Soderbergh was no longer tied with it. Now when I eventually get this off of Netflix all I'll be able to think about is how Soderbergh would have done it and get all depressed he'll be 'retired' at that point.

[NilbogSavant]

Soderbergh's script sounded perfect. It's a movie about a guy who crunches numbers in order to have a mildly successful baseball program on a limited budget. Why spice it up with all the skirt chasing and other nonsense? Sometimes, the beauty is in the banality.

[flyonthewall2983]

I'd still love to see Steven do a baseball movie somewhere down the road, preferably a comedy a la Bull Durham or Major League.

[James Mills]

Reading these posts are funny now after seeing the film. Pretty decent imo, albeit not at all worthy of its heralding. It's been as dry as ever though, so all the love is not surprising.

Pitt over-acts while Hill is surprisingly sound, best performance I've seen from him by a long ways. Its direction felt aberrated to me and didn't summate to more than anything other than entertainment; the story itself seemed forced for significance in comparison to the actual happenings of the era (Marlins won the championship with an even smaller payroll a few years before this, so the whole "we can do something no other team has ever done before!" is strained). This made the character arches feel insincere as well, though I believe this would have been even worse with Soderbergh. Alexander Payne would have made the most out of this script.

[knives]

Actually from the sounds of it Soderbergh seemed to be trying to get rid of the arches entirely and make it a very clinical affair (though a fair argument to that is that type of story building was a better fit to Contagion anyway).