Bennett Miller Catches ‘Moneyball’

Sony Pictures’ Moneyball is back in play. The adaptation of Michael Lewis’ non-fiction book about baseball statistics and Oakland Athletics manager Billy Beane has a new director after the studio halted production five days before shooting was scheduled to start.

Steven Soderbergh has been replaced by Bennett Miller, the Oscar-nominated director of Capote, according to Variety.  The trade announcement confirms an earlier scoop by The Playlist that suggested Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer) was also considered for the job.

That might have been a wild choice.  A sports story with indie music and a random, whimsical dance number at the center?

Steven Zillian’s original adaptation has been rewritten numerous times by Soderbergh and recently by Aaron Sorkin.  Brad Pitt is still tentatively attached, but with the delays and talent shake up, no one knows if that’s still the case.

Questions about the state of the movie still remain.  Will the script resemble Zillain’s, or did Sorkin rewrite it entirely?  Is Pitt still on board?  What will the budget end up being, if $60 million was considered out of control?

The studio has already sunk $10 million into the project in pre-production costs, including one-on-one interviews with baseball veterans conducted by Soderbergh.  Who knows if those conversations will ever see the inside of a theater as the movie mutates away from his spliced structure to a potentially more mainstream story.

But is this even worth telling in the first place?  Major League Baseball has been reluctant to lend support to anything but factually accurate accounts of the game and its players.  Which means depicting the mundane history behind using statistics to gain a strategic edge in the nation’s pastime.  Not exactly the most riveting material.  Nor was the 2002′s Oakland Athletics, which used the percentage system for a post-season appearance but didn’t win the pennant or make the World Series.

The impact of analytics may be felt behind-the-scenes of baseball, but will the numbers game make for a captivating movie?