Pitt obviously is committed to seeing this through. Many felt he would jump after Sony execs halted production on the Steven Soderbergh version of Moneyball, days before shooting was supposed to get underway last summer. That version had a $58 million price tag, and a docu-drama visual style that didn’t match the down-the-middle drama that was written by Stan Chervin and Steve Zaillian. Presumably, Pitt will be rewarded with a stronger back-end definition that gives him a bigger payday if the film succeeds…
I think plenty of people would argue that Brad Pitt’s back-end definition couldn’t possibly be any stronger, but color me psyched for the Moneyball movie regardless.
I would have cast Norm MacDonald as Billy Beane, partly because he sort of looks like Billy Beane and partly because if I were making a movie I’d probably cast Norm MacDonald in the lead even if it were the next Harry Potter or Shaft or whatever.
Regardless, this should be interesting, if not necessarily an exciting movie. Here’s hoping it successfully conveys the actual ideas presented in Moneyball. Movies are a good way to get worthwhile information to people who refuse to read books.
and for an excuse for norm macdonald to repeat all the choice lines from dirty work, of which to choose there are legion.
You fellas have a lot of growing up to do, I’ll tell you that. Ridiculous. Completely ridiculous. Can you believe these characters? Way out of line.
An early draft of the Moneyball script leaked on Big League Stew last summer
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/The-Moneyball-script-complete-with-Billy-Beane-?urn=mlb,172463
The link for the script was taken down. I read it, and it seemed like it would be totally awful for anyone who was just going to see a “baseball movie,” but pretty sweet for anyone who actually knew baseball.
For my money, f it doesn’t have an animated, Great-Gazoo-like Bill James, that train doesn’t fly.