Now It's Aaron Sorkin's Turn To Fail At Writing A Moneyball Script

Columbia has enlisted Sorkin, the sanctimonious West Wing creator last seen making Ed Asner say "Macau" over and over, to write a draft of the star-crossed Moneyball script. Such waste. Such inefficiency. Somebody could write a bestselling book about this.

Writes Steven Zeitchik of The Hollywood Reporter:

The writer has been brought on to do a draft of the baseball drama that will draw on Steve Zallian's earlier take on the project. The studio wants to move forward quickly with the new iteration, with Sorkin set to turn in his version as soon as August.

Brad Pitt remains on board to star in the Michael DeLuca-produced pic, but Steven Soderbergh will no longer write or direct, and is not involved in the film in any capacity.

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Sorkin is believed to have a close relationship with Sony. The A-list scribe recently completed "The Social Network" for the studio, colloquially known as the Facebook movie.

The writer also has experience writing tales set in the sports world, creating the critically well-received "Sports Night" for ABC a decade ago.

We excerpted Zallian's draft, which Sorkin will no doubt rewrite as a series of snappy conversations between two people walking down hallways. More interesting is that the making of the movie is quickly becoming a meta-commentary on the ideas in the book itself, something Steven Soderbergh — in his much-reviled script — vaguely seemed to toy with. With Sorkin, Columbia is Yankee-ishly tossing yet another big-name talent at a project that was probably doomed from the minute the script got optioned. If Billy Beane worked there, he'd throw a chair through a wall right about now. Aaron Sorkin game for 'Moneyball' [Hollywood Reporter]