Fiasco might be a strong word, but c’mon the last minute deep-sixing of Steven Soderbergh’s baseball metrics drama, “Moneyball,” that was to star Brad Pitt was one of the major news items of the year as far as we were concerned.
The film was greenlit and three days away from being shot when Sony prez Amy Pascal pulled the plug, leaving many to wonder: is a film starring money-maker Brad Pitt and slung with a relatively low ($57 million; that’s compared to blockbusters of course), still susceptible to economic concerns? (baseball films traditionally don’t do gangbusters, but Pitt is usually a safe bet).
Since the project was stopped, almost two weeks ago, there’s been a ton of speculation as to why the film was stopped — some of it has been our own, but generally it has been as informed as can be from what reputable sources have heard — but Sony, Soderbergh and Pitt have all stayed completely mum until now.
Pascal has finally spoken out to the L.A. Times, and she’s sticking to the story originally given out in Variety when the film was production was first canceled.
“I’ve wanted to work with Steven forever, because he’s simply a great filmmaker. But the draft he turned in wasn’t at all what we’d signed up for. He wanted to make a dramatic reenactment of events with real people playing themselves. I’d still work with Steven in a minute, but in terms of this project, he wanted to do the film in a different way than we did.”
Having read Soderbergh’s draft, we can buy this, however, we’d still insist the changes aren’t radically different. Just significantly different enough to cause concern. His version feels much more docu-drama compared to the more dramatized version in the Stephen Zaillain draft (there’s an alleged reasons for this going around in an contentious email making the rounds, but we’re not going to get into that any further).
The L.A. Times have read both versions of the script as well and say, “seems clear that [Soderbergh] became obsessed with authenticity, replacing many of Zaillian’s inspired scripted set-pieces with actual interviews with the real people who were involved in the events.”
Pascal echoes that sentiment. “Steven wanted to tell the story through these interviews with the real people, as they commented on Beane. But there are lots of ways to tell a true story. We were just more comfortable with what we thought was a wonderful draft from Steve Zaillian.”
The Times also notes how Soderbergh took out a lot of jokes or dramatic moments because they actually didn’t happen. Again,we can confirm having read them both, that this is true.
Apparently Soderbergh, his team and Pascal and Sony met to address the issues, and while she wouldn’t say on the record what was said behind these closed door meetings, sources apparently told the Times that “Soderbergh asked the Sony executives to trust him.” Naturally, this worried them and they were apparently concerned he’d deliver something more like, “Bubble” or “The Girlfriend Experience” (i.e. micro appeal indies on a major studio budget).
So more importantly, will “Moneyball” actually happen? Warner Bros. and Paramount already passed on it, and Sony is already in the tank for $14-some million based on the scripts, the interviews Soderbergh has already shot and all the pre-production. Do they take a bath on that money or do they still try and make the movie, perhaps without Soderbergh? And does that mean Brad Pitt walks because he allegedly brought the director onboard himself?
Her answer is, “We really hope we can still make this with Brad Pitt.” Translation: Soderbergh is more than likely off this project, but we hope we can persuade the intensely loyal Pitt to go with someone else, so we don’t have to entirely shelve this project and can potentially make our money back. Pitt apparently has director approval on this film, so they’ll have to find someone he’s cool with.
Soderbergh off the project isn’t just our speculation either, the L.A. Times says Pascal insists that there is no bad blood between her and the filmmaker and other projects are being discussed (i.e., not “Moneyball”). She’s still a believer that Sony and Pitt can get it off the ground. “We love this movie, we always have and we still want to make it. It’s a completely innovative way to tell a baseball story. It’s about wanting to believe in magic, which is what baseball is all about.”
But you know what? Unless someone equally creative is brought on board as a director, our interest in this project has officially waned/ mostly died. A great Zaillian script to be sure, but you need more than just your average joe to make it interesting otherwise, it’s an average baseball film and we’ll pass.