/Film reported today that Sony Pictures scrapped the Steven Soderbergh (The Girl Friend Experience) directed Moneyball. The film starring Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) was set to go into production in three days. Soderbergh now has one week to find a new distributor before Columbia Pictures either fires Sodenbergh or drops the project all together. Variety reported that the problem stemmed from the rewrite Soderbergh did to the original script written by Steven Zaillian (American Gangster). Studio head Amy Pascal was so uncomfortable with the new vision that the film had taken then she put the film into a “limited turnaround.” According to Soderbergh the film is extremely innovative and does not follow the typical narrative structure of a sports film.
Other than the three Ocean’s Films I haven’t seen a lot of Soderbergh’s work. But I like what I am hearing about an innovative sports film. I don’t know how I feel about it starring Brad Pitt though. I have a feeling if any studio is going to pick this “innovative” film up it is going to be Warner Bros. They seem to have a track record of taking risks the last few years.
Who do you think if anyone will pick up Moneyball?