June
21
Studios Get Tough; Sony Puts Moneyball in Play
In the overall scheme of things, a $57-million budget is pocket change to a studio, especially a big-spender like Sony. So why would Sony chairman Amy Pascal risk alienating a star like Brad Pitt and a director like Steven Soderbergh by pulling the plug on baseball movie Moneyball hours before it was to start shooting? She's sending a message to Hollywood, loud and clear. She's asserting her power to just say no. Finally, in this economy, the studios are spending less on fewer available slots. That's also what Brad Grey is signalling at Paramount by ditching production execs John Lesher and Brad Weston: he's saying, "There's no room for error."
Pascal can afford to let this movie go because it was always a risky play, and she clearly isn't willing to take a gamble right now unless she believes in it. (That might not have been true a year ago.) According to sources close to the movie, last week Soderbergh turned in a shooting script that was different from the earlier Zaillian draft that the studio had green lit. (Sony producer Michael DeLuca is on the movie.) Pascal felt the honorable thing to do was to allow Soderbergh to take the film to other studios, where he could presumably make the film he wanted to make.
If Soderbergh can't get the movie financed--which includes coming up with some $10 million already charged against the movie, including Zaillian's scripts and pre-production costs; the movie was slated to shoot Monday--it will return to Sony, who will go back to their Zaillian draft and presumably seek another director. (David Frankel, director of Devil Wears Prada and Marley and Me was circling the project at one point.) The studio may choose to take a write-off.
The question is, does Pitt stay on board? What does he think? He is loyal to Soderbergh, who has done well by him through three Oceans movies. Pitt can be notoriously indecisive about choosing projects--he dropped out of The Fountain, State of Play, and The Bourne Identity. For all major movie stars, there's a great deal at stake every time they step up to bat. They cannot afford to miss. Pitt is coming off a strong Oscar-nominated role in David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button , which was expensive and barely scraped into profitability. He and CAA will wield some clout here.
Sony will meet in the next day or so to determine what happens next. Pascal and her production chief Matt Tolmach are fans of the Michael Lewis bestseller and Zaillian's script. What did Soderbergh do to change their tune? While he knows how to make popular Oceans movies, his track record on other studio mainstream fare is less consistent. (See: The Good German and Solaris, both starring one-time partner George Clooney.) Besides, Soderbergh's primary affiliation is with Warner Bros., not Sony.
What's so risky about this movie?
Baseball movies are hit and miss. Hits like Bull Durham, Field of Dreams and Major League are exceptions. For Love of the Game starring Kevin Costner is more typical, grossing $35 million domestically. Also, baseball doesn't translate overseas.
No star is a sure thing anymore. Even Pitt. (See: The Assassination of Jesse James by that Coward Robert Ford, The Mexican, Snatch.) His next, Quentin Tarantino's Cannes entry Inglourious Basterds, is far from a guaranteed hit.
Soderbergh isn't a tentpole director, outside the Oceans franchise. And he's coming off micro-budget The Girlfriend Experience and Che, both strictly high-end audience plays. But Soderbergh's a good match for this material. He used to play serious baseball in Baton Rouge; he had a great arm but lost his mojo at age 12. "I woke up one morning and I didn't have it," Soderbergh told Jess Cagle in 2001. "And I knew that I wasn't gonna be able to get it back. Whatever the thing was, it was just gone."
Soderbergh told ESPN what he wanted to do with this movie, including shooting this summer at baseball games, interviewing real athletes, and rebuilding parts of the Oakland As coliseum on a soundstage:
"We have the dramatic building blocks, so the question is how real can we make the world? My clearly stated goal is to set a new standard for realism in that [sports] world."
I really want to see him make Moneyball. I hope this contretemps gets worked out in his favor.
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This is beyond fascinating. Moneyball is a really terrific book but, at first glance, it's a property that doesn't necessarily lend itself to narrative cinematic adaptation. Given the surely unorthodox and studious take on Billy Beane and Co. that Soderbergh, Zaillian & Pitt were apt to deliver, its a real shame the studio is balking (pun mostly not intended). Making Bill James worshiping metrics wonks/baseball nerds into compelling dramatic figures within the context of a studio film seems like a nearly impossible task, but one that Soderbergh clearly sees as an opportunity to further rupture conventional forms.
Posted by: bisovi | June 21, 2009 at 11:39 PM
I'm not a baseball fan by any stretch of the imagination so this project didn't interest me at all, so I have to admit film sounded partically dull to me. And I have mentioned bfeore that Soderbaugh, in my opinion, is one of the most overrated directors around today?
Posted by: Sergio | June 22, 2009 at 07:27 AM
This raises some fascinating questions. How often does a movie go into production with a shooting script significantly different from the one the studio initially greenlit? I'm assuming it happens all the time, although if a studio is more attached to the star/director combo than the actual script they'll probably overlook it. And how often has a studio pulled the plug on a film for this reason? I know they pull the plug frequently for budget reasons, but I don't recall ever hearing of a halt in a production this close to start time for script reasons. Have there been similar notable shutdowns like this?
Posted by: Brian | June 22, 2009 at 01:01 PM
Anne..please do your research and THINK instead of just being a mouthpiece for Amy Pascal.
Pascal greenlit this movie with a $70 million dollar budget with Frankel. Pitt wanted him off the project and brought in Soderbergh. Soderbergh brought the budget down to $57 million.
The movie was to begin shooting in 3 days..how dramatically different could the script be? Sets were built, some crews were already on the way to Phoenix to start. Soderbergh was doing the revisions to save $$ since Zailian refused to do any rewrites unless compensated more than the $3 million he was already paid. Pascal was unaware the studio (after spending close to 5 million on different scripts and rights) never got approval from MLB. MLB only approved Soderbergh and his revisions. She can't make the movie using the real teams or names of people involved without MLB approval. She is now stuck. If she wants to start from scratch hiring new writers and a new director this movie is going to get a lot more expensive. And Pitt has remained mum about staying on the project without Soderbergh. Chances are he would want to ankle...he's known to be fickle and this all just got pushed off into the unknown abyss of development. Sadly this is an example of someone trying to exert their power and not think reasonably. If she doesn't try to work this out this will severely damage her in the eyes of the creative community...Pitt...his companion Angelina Jolie (who just finished Salt for Sony) and Soderbergh's close friends Julia Roberts (who's had a long term working relationship with the studio) as well as pal Clooney who recently ankled his deal with WB and moved his shingle to Sony.
Amy has not thought this through and by behaving so impetuously and irrationally just gets labeled as a 'crazy executive bitch.'
Posted by: BlakeAnderson | June 22, 2009 at 01:26 PM
"What's more, having read the final script, I can only say that the story is amazingly faithful to the book, capturing the rebellious energy of Beane as he butts heads with the old-school baseball establishment."
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-bigpicture2-2009jun02,0,3896715.story
This LA Times writer wrote he read the final script on or before June 2. Yet it took until June 20 for Pascal to read and stop the movie. I still don't think this was just a script problem.
Posted by: lac | June 22, 2009 at 04:21 PM
As nice as this would have been to see as a film, if Pitt wasn't the one backing out of this (really wanting to do a film before officially getting into production for once!) it's nice to see a bit of karma coming back to bite him on the arse.
Posted by: Scott | June 23, 2009 at 04:48 AM
BlakeAnderson - who is 'labeling' Pascal 'a crazy executive bitch'? Please explain.
Posted by: Ryan Hughes | June 25, 2009 at 12:28 PM