Is it almost comical now the number of Steven Soderbergh projects he has on the go? The working title action spy film, “Knockout” is set to shoot in January, “Liberace,” might shoot next summer, his second Spalding Gray documentary is complete, “Cleo” might be after that and apparently there’s a Scott Z. Burns penned virus-outbreak movie that he might eventually direct as well.
But to balance out this prodigious output, at least the baseball metrics drama, “Moneyball” fell apart, right?
Maybe so, but Soderbergh now says he has another (sorta) baseball project that he’s about to pitch to Major League Baseball. “Yeah, I have another idea for a baseball movie that actually doesn’t have any baseball in it,” he told MTV. “I am going to see MLB when I’m in New York to talk to them about it.”
Apparently the film will focus on a real life baseball player (apparently a famous one, but he won’t say who) and his life past the baseball diamond. “It’s a true story. I don’t want to jinx it, because it would involve life rights. I want to talk to [MLB] and say ‘If I did a movie on this subject, would you be cool with this? What kind of cooperation can I expect?’”
Man, Soderbergh is all hardcore about the realism these days, huh? MTV’s baseball fans speculate on a stories that could revolve around disavowed and disgraced ballplayers like Jose Canseco, Pete Rose, plus other choices, but we like the idea of either of these two guys having to carry the weight and shame of ignominy.
The filmmaker also addressed “Moneyball” again. How would he feel if Brad Pitt ever got the new version off the ground? “I guess I won’t know until I’m confronted with a situation; then I’ll find out how I feel. In general, I don’t hang on to that stuff. It just doesn’t serve a purpose to spend energy on something I can’t change,” he continued. “The moment I realized there was nothing else for me to do to keep this as a project of mine, I switched off. At a certain point it’s like getting mad at weather. The problem became I had people working for me who were suddenly out of work, and are still out of work, and I couldn’t push up any of my other projects because of actor’s schedules. That was frustrating.”
For the record, we’ve been told that Aaron Sorkin’s new draft (he was hired after the whole debacle to write a new draft) was turned in almost two months ago and obviously there’s been no movement that we know of, so it’s possible Sony might just be cutting their losses with that one and hoping everyone just forgets the drama ever existed. It could be tainted goods at this point.
Our own Soderbergh source tell us not to get too excited on this untitled baseball project as this one is a long ways off.