Moneyball's Deep-Sixed

Break out the baseball puns! Columbia has dropped Steven Soderbergh's Moneyball adaptation like an overvalued, arbitration-eligible pitcher after a career year. Why, it's as if producers made a running, 20-foot backhand flip to cut down the movie at the plate.

Reports E! Online (which went with the decidedly weak "Columbia Drops the Ball on Brad Pitt's Moneyball" for its punning headline):

They can't all be home runs for Brad Pitt.

His latest project, the Steven Soderbergh-directed Moneyball, has been put into "limited turnaround" by Columbia Pictures honcho Amy Pascal after receiving a much different final draft of a script she once fought for.

Production on the film was set to start Monday in Phoenix, and with only 96 hours to go, Soderbergh's change in vision unsettled Pascal and the brakes were immediately applied to the project.

The "limited turnaround" gives Soderbergh the opportunity to try and settle with another studio, the aim being bigwigs such as Paramount and Warner Bros. The filmmaker has until Monday to tie down the deal, having spent the weekend with both his and Pitt's CAA agents attempting to hit one out of the park-so to speak.

If that doesn't happen, America will very likely have lost its only chance at ever seeing Lenny Dykstra and Demetri Martin together on the big screen. Just a few weeks ago, Lewis seemed nonplussed that the movie was being made at all. In an interview with the he said: "I didn't understand why they bought it for a movie in the first place."

At least the adaptation of Lewis' is proceeding apace. Sandra Bullock and Tim McGraw, folks. Touchdown! Columbia Drops the Ball on Brad Pitt's [E! Online] Has Soderbergh's Moneyball Movie Been Canned? [Slate.com]