Aaron Sorkin Provides Relief to ‘Moneyball’

Published by Jeff Leins on: July 10th, 2009

The past month has been rough for Moneyball, which saw a rare eleventh hour cancellation by Sony over a script dispute last month.  The adaptation of Michael Lewis’ non-fiction book about the Oakland A’s was dropped five days before it was supposed to start shooting and Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh was removed from the project.  In interviews during the fallout, Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal defended her decision to scrap the $57 million budget and the $10 million already spent in development.

Reports said Soderbergh turned in a script days before production was to start in Arizona with “radical changes” to the one written by Steven Zaillian and approved by Sony.  Pascal cites the difference in expectations as the reason to kill the movie, while others say she was aware of the changes as Soderbergh cycled through re-writes leading up to the start date.

Rather than scrap a movie that was to star Brad Pitt and cut their losses, Sony has hired a new writer for another version.  Aaron Sorkin has been hired to do a new draft (due in just a month) in hopes of salvaging the movie.  Pitt still has approval on final script and director choice, so he could still easily walk even after it’s re-worked.

Sorkin recently completed The Social Network, a script about the creation of Facebook at Harvard.  David Fincher (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Fight Club, and Se7en) is set to direct and an early, raving script review called it “unpredictable, funny, touching, and sad.”  Sorkin also created “Sports Night,” which showed his love for the game and work behind the scenes, as well as “The West Wing.”  I guess Sony isn’t ready to let this movie go, and they picked a solid choice to take another swing.