20 Things You Didn’t Know About Moneyball

19. Steven Soderbergh Originally Planned To Direct With Baseball Players Playing Themselves

Though Moneyball was eventually helmed by Bennett Miller, he actually ended up replacing Steven Soderbergh, who had gotten as far as shooting interviews with baseball players such as Lenny Dykstra, Mookie Wilson, and Darryl Strawberry to be included in the movie.

Soderbergh's vision for Moneyball was quite experimental, deciding to have the film's baseball players play themselves, while also rewriting major aspects of Steven Zaillian's script to be more strictly factual.

But after reviewing Soderbergh's rewrites, Sony put production on hold just five days before principal photography was set to begin, fearing that his left-field approach was too much of a commercial gamble in the fraught economic climate.

Production ultimately resumed a year later with Miller replacing Soderbergh, opting for a more conventional docudrama approach as rewritten by Aaron Sorkin.