The Playlist have posted a quite incredible story that
Steve Zaillian (
American Gangster), the original screenwriter on Columbia's sports drama
Moneyball, has been
re-hired to piece together a new draft before filming begins on
July 12th. In other words - Zaillian's original replacement - Oscar winning screenwriter
Aaron Sorkin (
A Few Good Men) and his multiples drafts (they say as many as five!!)
have now been trashed, and Columbia are spending even more gold on bringing back the guy who's screenplay they decided not to go with in the first place.
Incredible. What's even more astonishing is that this isn't the first time this has happened to Zaillian. Four years ago, he was paid a seven figure sum to re-write
American Gangster for
Ridley Scott, after initially being replaced by
Antoine Fuqua. Essentially, Zaillian
has been paid four times to write two movies. Moneyball then, finds
Brad Pitt as Oakland A's manager Billy Beane who in 2003 transformed a struggling team by adopting a complex statistics system based on computer-generated analysis to draft his players.
Jonah Hill plays Harvard grad assistant Paul DePodesta, with
Phillip Seymour Hoffman and
Robin Wright Penn supporting.
Bennett Miller directs his first movie since the excellent
Capote.