After a year of debacles and false start the baseball drama “Moneyball” is finally shooting and we thought we’d never see the day. And here’s your first look at Brad Pitt as Oakland A’s GM Billy Beane standing next to an unidentified A’s team member in the dugout. We assume that’s not the coach, because Art Howe is a ) white and b) being played by Phillip Seymour Hoffman. There’s also a second look here at Jonah Hill who plays untested Harvard grad and Beane’s assistant Paul DePodesta.
The drama behind “Moneyball” is the stuff of near Hollywood legend, though in many ways it’s just the typical m.o. of a film’s development. David Frankel (“Marley & Me”) was first attached to direct, then Steven Soderbergh took the reins and his version of the project had its legs kicked out from under it by Sony head Amy Pascal three days before production was going to start in May of last year. Multiple fingers pointed at different directions of blame, but nothing became too publicly clear other than the auteur being thrown under the bus by the studio. Our main take away, which you can read into how you like, is that Soderbergh and his “Ocean’s” star Pitt will likely never work together again.
Five writers worked on the screenplay at one time or another (including Stan Chervin, Stephen J. Rivele, Christopher Wilkinson). Most recently Steve Zaillian (Academy Award winner for “Schindler’s List,” writer of David Fincher’s upcoming “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”) was rehired to rewrite the Aaron Sorkin draft based on the original draft Zaillian had already written (got that?) Sorkin was then supposed to do a polish on the rewrite of his rewrite, but that never happened and was only reported as such to make everything look on the up and up, but several sources close to the project tell us that Sorkin overwrote himself to the point where no one was happy with his final draft including the always important Pitt (and it’s a bit of a shame as one Sorkin draft we read was funny and great).
As if the picture couldn’t get any more bad press, the film’s would-be cinematographer Adam Kimmel was arrested on charges of sexual assault of a minor in May.
Whatever, the thing is shooting, right? A dramedy of sorts and even a buddy picture in one draft we read, “Moneyball” centers on Billy Beane (Pitt) and Paul De Podesta (Hill), the GM and assistant GM that made the 2002 Oakland A’s a highly competitive Major League Baseball team (Beane took them to a AL West Division title) using a modern analytical sabermetrics system, despite having a completely budgeted, low-rent team that were initially the laughing stock of baseball early on in their season.
Directed by Bennett Miller (“Capote”), “Moneyball” stars Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill, Robyn Wright, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Kathryn Morris (“Cold Case”) Stephen Bishop and Chris Pratt (“Parks & Recreation.” No release date is set for the picture yet, but we would imagine next spring or early fall to capitalize on baseball season (but in the heart of the summer a pic like this would be likely lost). [MTV/Accidental Sexiness]