We’re not going to recount the long, twisty history of “Moneyball” — we’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, there is a crackerjack book or in depth Peter Biskind-styled Vanity Fair sized story here just waiting to be written — but a year after Steven Soderbergh’s version was canned at the very last minute the Bennett Miller (“Capote”) directed film is finally in front of cameras.
Given it’s a movie about baseball, and is filming in an actual ballpark, it’s no surprise that set photos have leaked at the rate usually reserved for boring tentpoles (zomg, a picture of car that might be Transformer!). Among the photos to find their way to the web so far have been shots of Philip Seymour Hoffman as Oakland A’s manager Art Howe and Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill as club GM and assistant GM respectively Billy Beane and Paul De Podesta. Actually, scratch that last bit.
Fanhouse is reporting that De Podesta feels his representation in the film is “fictitious and only loosely based on him” and has requested his name be removed from the film. Say goodbye to Paul De Podesta, say hello to Peter Brand. It’s a bit of bummer considering the film has been striving to use real life player names, and gone the extra mile to get other details right including converting the Oakland A’s ballpark back to what it looked like in 2002, complete with outfield signs and advertising that would’ve been there eight years ago. But ultimately, it’s a minor change and really one that only the most die hard of baseball enthusiasts should actually really care about.
Among the other bits of intriguing information revealed by Fanhouse is that Miller asked A’s radio play-by-play man Ken Korach to recreate the Opening Day 2002 broadcast on the fly, without a script, giving him and fellow broadcasters Greg Papa and Glen Kuiper a few topics to discuss and allowing them to go from there. It also appears that Chris Pratt (“Parks & Recreation”) may play a more central role to the film than we first thought. Playing first baseman Scott Hatteberg, he soon became proof of Beane’s statistical theories that OBP (on base percentage) was just as important as a player’s batting average or RBIs (runs batted in). Hatteberg also capped the A’s remarkable 20-game win streak that summer by blasting the game winning home run in the final game of that run. That final game will apparently comprise twelve minutes of the finished film and has taken four all-night sessions of shooting to get in the can.
It certainly sounds like Miller and company aren’t slouching and the level of detail they seem committed to sounds impressive. But again, this is a movie about baseball stats so it remains to be seen if a compelling narrative can be wrested from the material.
“Moneyball” will theaters in 2011.
