Not a very enjoyable Father’s Day for either director Steven Soderbergh, screenwriter Steve Zaillian and actor Brad Pitt. According to Variety, Columbia Pictures has decided to drop their upcoming adaptation project MONEYBALL. And the reason is.. Columbia’s honcho Amy Pascal hated the final draft delivered last week by Zillian, she found it to be very different than the early scripts she was vouching for. And so, this past Friday, she took the liberty of placing the project into what’s called a “limited turnaround,” giving the filmmaker the chance to set it up at another studio, possibly with Warner Brothers and Paramount the prime targets. It may be father’s day to every one else but it’s definitely girl power day for Pascal.
What’s bitter about this is that it was done in the last minute, the 11th hour, whatever you wanna call it because production was supposed to start.. tomorrow! Well, that ain’t gonna happen.
Soderbergh and Pitt’s CAA reps spent the weekend attempting to get another studio to play ball. Imagine their Ari Golds running around trying to get a studio honcho to take the bite. It’s like an episode of Entourage.
If they didn’t succeed by today, here are the options:.. Either Columbia replaces Soderbergh, or delays the film until Pascal and the filmmaker find themselves in synch on the script or pulling the plug completely.
This whole thing is happening 96 hours before the participants were ready to take the field, after three months of prep and with camera tests completed and cast (Brad Pitt, Demitri Martin, and real baseball players as actors) and a budget of $50 Million in place and Soderbergh feeling very confident his take would work visually
But Pascal is worried that with the script that doesn’t follow the traditional narrative structure of most sports tale, it would not do well in the international marketplace. I take it Zaillian’s final draft didn’t follow your usual sports movie cliches and audiences overseas who tend to love other sports more than baseball, would find something as different as this to be unlikable. Did I get her fears right?
I think Pascal needs to have more faith in Soderbergh and Zaillian,.. they’re not your next door filmmakers, their Oscar winners for pete’s sake. They know what they’re doing!
Ya know what.. Pascal and her Columbia can just drown themselves in SPIDER-MAN 4.. and let Warner Bros. take care of quality films like MONEYBALL.
Here’s the official synopsis of the book MONEYBALL
“The Oakland Athletics have a secret: a winning baseball team is made, not bought.In major league baseball the biggest wallet is supposed to win: rich teams spend four times as much on talent as poor teams. But over the past four years, the Oakland Athletics, a major league team with a minor league payroll, have had one of the best records. Last year their superstar, Jason Giambi, went to the superrich Yankees. It hasn’t made any difference to Oakland: their fabulous season included an American League record for consecutive victories. Billy Beane, general manager of the Athletics, is putting into practice on the field revolutionary principles garnered from geek statisticians and college professors.”
