The Moneyball Saga Continues
Yesterday we posted Sony’s take on why Moneyball, the Soderbergh/Pitt film based on Michael Lewis’ book, died five days before shooting was to start. Now someone close to the project has provided us with a different version of events.
First, let’s briefly recap what we and others have reported so far: The film was set to begin shooting last week. Five days before the start of shooting, director Steven Soderbergh turned in a rewrite of the original script, which was written by Steven Zaillian, that Sony executives, led by co-Chairman Amy Pascal, did not like. The studio felt that Soderbergh, who was insistent that every event in the film had to have taken place in real life, was taking the film in an “artsy” direction that they weren’t willing to gamble $US58-million dollars on, so they killed it. That’s the short version of events according to Amy Pascal anyway.
Since then a few more details about the project emerged. Movieline and Deadspin provided some new information in reports of their own, and today the New York Times has an article that sheds some light on Soderbergh’s zeal for authenticity.
One reason was to win the approval of Major League Baseball, which was not happy with some factual liberties in Mr. Zaillian’s version. Such approval is crucial in a baseball film that intends to use protected trademarks.
“Typically, on a film like this, we look at it for historical accuracy,” said Matthew Bourne, a vice president of Major League Baseball for public relations. “We’ve been in touch with Soderbergh and Sony, and they’ve been receptive to our requests.”
What baseball saw as accurate, Sony executives saw as being too much a documentary.
All of this brings us to the information provided to us by a tipster who’d been working on the project and has a decidedly different point of view than that of Amy Pascal and Sony.
First and foremost, Soderbergh had been upfront with the direction in which he intended to take the film from the very beginning of his employment. In fact, it was clear to all of us – whether in the Art Department or the Costumes Department, etc. – that Soderbergh intended to use real people to play themselves in the creation of the true story of Moneyball. Additionally, for months Soderbergh had been shooting interviews with real ball players and people from Billy Beane’s past, and the studio approved these shoots. How could the studio then at the eleventh hour claim that his approach was a surprise to them? He intended to tell the true story rather than a fictitious version of the story. How innovative.
What exactly is wrong with making a movie accurate? And since when does an authentic film translate as an “art” film? I know numerous people that thought that Soderbergh’s approach sounded insightful and interesting and true to the game and what really happened. If baseball lovers and non-baseball lovers alike in my large social network felt this way (not to mention the hundreds of bloggers that were fans of the concept), why couldn’t this approach have universal appeal?
Regarding the notion that Sony executives were shocked to discover the direction Soderbergh planned on taking the film:
Soderbergh’s script dated June 17, 2009 was not the first script that he handed in to Sony. On June 7th, Soderbergh submitted a draft to the studio with the following note on the first page:
“NOTE: Scenes involving Billy Beane’s minor and major league career have been removed from this draft. They will be determined by filmed interviews with scouts, coaches, managers, players and family members who were with him at the time.”
Sony executives read this draft. And Sony executives gave Soderbergh their notes. Clearly Amy Pacal did not read this draft – if she had, maybe the drama that began with the June 17th draft could have been avoided.
Another fact: Soderbergh handed in yet another draft dated June 10, 2009 with this note on the first page:
“NOTE: Billy Beane’s minor and major league career will be shown via filmed interviews with scouts, coaches, managers, players and family members who were with him at the time. These interviews will comprise approximately ten percent of the film.
“Another ten percent of the film will consist of re-enactments of real events as remembered by the people playing themselves. The purpose of these scenes will be to provide set-up and perspective for subjects, situations, or relationships which currently appear in the screenplay without the requisite/normal amount of context.”
Now why in the world was Amy Pascal so shocked (or, rather, “apoplectic” as it was relayed to the production team) when she read the June 17th draft? Could Soderbergh have made his intentions any more clear? Even if these executives did not read beyond PAGE 1, they would have known the direction in which he wanted to take the film – and they should have perhaps reported that to their boss. And maybe, just maybe, if there had been communication with their boss, maybe, just maybe, another avenue could have been taken rather than pulling the plug three days before the film was supposed to start shooting. For instance, maybe they could have delayed principal photography while script/concept issues were resolved.
Our tipster closed with this note:
On the day that Amy Pascal pulled the plug, there were 230 people that were working on Moneyball. Now those 230 people are all out of jobs.
When Soderbergh had to address a stage filled with crew members who were about to lose their jobs, he told us that just as Moneyball was the unorthodox version of building baseball teams, Moneyball the movie was the unorthodox way of making a film. Unfortunately, Amy Pascal does not believe in Moneyball as a concept; otherwise the film would be in its second week of shooting right now.
So there you have it—Another side of the story. All of this is obviously meaningless in the grand scheme of life, not to mention very “inside baseball” (pun intended), but it’s so damn fun to talk about. We anxiously await the next bit of backbiting to emerge between the Sony and Soderbergh camps.
Why Did Sony Kill the Pitt/Soderbergh Film Adaptation of Moneyball [Previously]
MLB Approval Still Murky as Moneyball Circles the Drain [Movieline]
Money Worries Kill A-List Film at Last Minute [New York Times]
Soderbergh’s Moneyball Script Too Real to Get Made [Deadspin]
pic via Vulture
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Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
@The Marble Faun: Yep.
@daveyjonesisdead: Only Charlie decides he can't make a film out of the article, so he writes some weird existential piece about an alien from another dimension who dreams that he's making a movie on Earth about "Moneyball." And he gets Brad Pitt to play himself.
@JulieJewel: Then optioned for a movie. Writer: Charlie Kaufman.
daveyjonesisdead
I look forward to the Vanity Fair article that will inevitably be written about all this.
@MopUpReliever: So Matt, will you be putting the asterisks on all of the juiced HR record entries yourself or will you have an assistant do it?
Bedheadjc
@Fuzzy Dunlop:
How can you be sure?
@Anthony_Underscore: Casting suggestion: Let's have Angelina play Eck. Right? Am I right?
MsWinstonSmith
Yes, but did they get Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh on tape? Questions worth asking.
Baseball movies are so dull, anyway.
The Marble Faun
Sony hasn't had a great summer, and they couldn't afford to make a 100 million dollar film that might have come across as "art house," or would only appeal to sports fans. It sucks, because the film sounded interesting, but it was a victim of circumstances and they had to make a business decision.
@raincoaster: They have spent $10 million according to THR.
mslewis
@skahammer: Or maybe "stat." (Going off to have my speller recalibrated right now.)
@Flippyjack: You are going to want to have your gaydar recalibrated, state.
@The Cajun Boy: surely you can't be that desperate for pals, amigo.
(for the record, I've read MONEYBALL, but LIAR'S POKER is a much better book, both in writing and as to how relevant it still is today)
Steve, let's not bullshit each other. You made Ocean's 12 and 13. Don't try to big time us now.
Seeing Kevin Youkilis' head painted green with the even funnier ears, would be a laugh. Watch him step out of the back of the batters box some time during a game too. The umps never seem to call him on it.
SteverMan
@MopUpReliever: I dunno- I'm not a football fan (in the way that the book was written), but being a life long Red Sox fan, and seeing the way the Fallon/Barrymore film played out in the year of our salvation (2004), I really enjoyed this movie.
SteverMan
Ahhh, so Sony was just protecting us all from the horrors of seeing a 20 ft. Kevin Youkilis Shrek head.
@Flippyjack: Wrong Billy Beane.
p.s. Are you Joe Morgan?
@Jsmoke: I hope you had taken enough liberties to add a mustache battle with Rollie Fingers!
Anthony_Underscore
@Ricki-Oh:
Pascal knows one thing: ignore sunk costs.
@Ben Dover: FAIL.
Mr. Tabitha Soren wrote a book about Billy Beane, is not actually Billy Beane. Douchebag?
@raincoaster: Oh yes, kill fees and contract buy-outs will surely cost them a lot. Sometimes as much as fifty percent of the production cost. You have to wonder why; if they were that far down the road on this, where some photography (not principal mind you) had already been shot, they killed it.
It does look like a little corporate CYA, so Pascal can go to Stringer and say, "look, I'm doin' stuff, I'm being proactive, blah blah blah".
Ricki-Oh
@Fuzzy Dunlop: "creative" than me, not "created." We're both equally created.
Fuzzy Dunlop
I'm in no position to second-guess Soderbergh, who's only about 500000000 times more talented and created than me, but I'm not surprised that his rewrites freaked out the studio. He decided to cut all scenes of Billy Beane's playing carrier, and to replace them with interviews comprising 10% of the film? Why? Isn't one of the cardinal rules of filmmaking Show, Don't Tell?
Fuzzy Dunlop
"Typically, on a film like this, we look at it for historical accuracy," said Matthew Bourne, a vice president of Major League Baseball for public relations.
Well bully for you Matt. Your penchant for "historical accuracy" allowed Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore to F up the greatest sports moment of my life.
MopUpReliever
This project was always a bad fit for Sony anyway.
Am I the only one who hears the lumbering steps of the Beast From Buffalo moving in to snatch another quality project from turnaround hell?
Billy Beane's major league career wasn't worth recreating on the big screen.
@RaleighSthenelus: I'd like to know how much they've ALREADY spent, though. How much is it to kill a film with a major star jsut before filming? Surely Brad's agent got some guarantees.
@The Cajun Boy: Ditto. Or girlfriend...given the track record there, he's overdue. Hmm...
@Flippyjack: FAIL
Mr. Tabatha Soren is not gay, douchebag.
@Flippyjack: Isn't it the other Billy Bean who's gay? Also, who cares?
katekate is squared
I think the studio would be way more interested in the script I wrote about the life of Dennis Eckersley.
@Flippyjack: This Billy Beane ain't gay.
The Test
Die-hard baseball fans really didn't like the idea of this movie, and they're not quite the same as die-hard comic book/video fans (who would still see a Uwe Boll epic), so... not clear how it would have gone.
mauricegirodias
The film was axed because Sony has had one bomb after another this summer and they couldn't justify spending $50 million on a risky film. If Year One or the Denzel/Travolta flick would've done decent at the box office this would not have happened. I used to work there, they're firing people left and right to cut costs. Amy Pascal is a liar, plain and simple. Just days after she delivered here "Status of the Studio" speech to the entire company last year, the next week hundreds lost their jobs. Sony is playing scared right now because they have no brand identity. Year after year they rely on star power to drive their slate, not concept or story. Amy Pascal has killed Columbia and it's identity. I would not be suprised if Howard Stringer gives her the boot this year.
RaleighSthenelus
Just so we're clear, Billy Beane (A's GM) is not gay, but Billy Bean (former MLB player) is gay, and Brad Pitt will not be playing either one in a motion picture in the forseeable future.
Mike Piazza will call a press conference to clear all this up soon enough.
Daniel Peck
Here's a quick fix: substitute Billy Bean for Billy Beane.
Brad Pitt should have no trouble playing a gay MLB player and Bean was pretty ripped back in the day.
Change the title to Fielding Ground Balls or something, make a few changes in the screenplay and, Voila! Soderbergh's got himself another hit.
I hope they find financing and make that damn movie.
Do you realize?
Billy Beane (the Pitt character) is gay. Some of y'all care about that.
Steven Soderberg made Traffic. Which was brilliant.
Billy Beane's logic changed baseball.
Soderberg is right on with his treatment.
This is like when Terry Gilliam watched Don Quixote explode in front of him.
Sometimes the perfect piece of art for the perfect artist just slay each other to no one's benefit.
@raincoaster: I have a feeling that Michael Lewis is sitting back and just laughing at all of this. I think I want to be his friend.
Looks like The Making of Moneyball is the kind of story you'd put Michael Lewis on...hmmm, is it a plot to keep him employed or something?