Brad Pitt became an unlikely victim of the economic downturn this week when his latest movie, the baseball drama Moneyball, was cancelled just five days before shooting was set to begin. Original backer Sony Pictures has now put the production into "limited turnaround", giving the film-makers a chance to offer it to another studio. Early evidence suggests that no one is biting.
Based on Michael Lewis's 2003 bestseller about the Oakland Athletics baseball team, Moneyball was set to be directed by Steven Soderbergh, with Pitt starring as manager Billy Beane. But the $58m (£36m) production has reportedly been judged to be too "arty" to appeal to a mainstream audience.
According to sources, Sony took the decision to pull out of the project after Soderbergh turned in a last-minute rewrite of the Moneyball script. Penned by the Oscar-winning screenwriter Steven Zaillian, the script reportedly contained an abundance of baseball details that executives feared risked alienating viewers. It was claimed that Sony chairwoman Amy Pascal was left "apoplectic" by both the rewrite and by Soderbergh's subsequent refusal to compromise.
Yesterday, a source close to the production hit back at the studio's decision. "What exactly is wrong with making a movie accurate?" the unnamed source told gawker.com. "And since when does an authentic film translate as an 'art' film?"
In the wake of Sony's decision to bail out of the film, Moneyball was turned down by two other Hollywood behemoths. "In the light of the economic climate, Warner Bros and Paramount said they weren't going to make the movie," confirmed Pitt's manager, Cynthia Pett-Dante.
The future of Moneyball now hangs in the balance. In the meantime, Pitt, Soderbergh, and some 230 other employees are temporarily out of work.