10 Directors Who Were Kicked Off A Movie
3. Steven Soderbergh - Moneyball
Moneyball did alright for itself, with the sports drama earning over $110m at the box office and landing six Academy Awards including Best Picture, Actor and Supporting Actor. A solid prestige picture no doubt, but the project would have turned out very differently had original director Steven Soderbergh remained on board.
The production was only three days away from starting principal photography when Soderbergh was canned, with shooting delayed until for months until a replacement was found. That man was Bennett Miller, who delivered a by-the-number sports biopic that played well during awards season.
Soderbergh wanted to take a different approach to the material and use a docu-drama style featuring interviews with real athletes and had even gone so far as to conduct several interviews before the studio decided that they wanted a much more straightforward approach to the story. Which is a real shame, as a unique voice like Soderbergh's could have brought something entirely new to the cliche-riddled biopic formula.