Screenhead

An unusual turn occurred with Moneyball, a Steven Soderbergh-directed and Brad Pitt starred film. Columbia Pictures has dropped the project into “limited turnaround” even though production was to start on Monday in Phoenix, which gives the director a chance to get with another studio like Warner Bros. or Paramount.

As the trades tell it, before the weekend began, Columbia Pictures executive Amy Pascal read a rewrite that Soderbergh did to Steven Zaillian’s script and found it very different from the earlier scripts she championed. Pascal was uncomfortable enough with how the vision had changed that she applied the brakes.

A new financier needs to emerge by today, Columbia will re-examine options that include replacing Soderbergh (and hoping Pitt doesn’t ankle), delaying the film until Pascal and the filmmaker see eye-to-eye on the script or pulling the plug.

Sure the studios are more cautious these days, but turnaround news so close to production like this is very unusual. Particularly when it’s only 96 hours before the participants were ready to take the field, following three months of prep and with camera tests completed and cast and budget in place.

Pascal’s wariness is hardly unfathomable. Even though it was approved by Major League Baseball, the script doesn’t follow the traditional narrative structure of most sports stories.

Moneyball is based on the bestselling Michael Lewis book about Billy Beane (Pitt), the former player who resurfaced as the Oakland A’s general manager and found success fielding competitive teams for low cost.