Update: “Moneyball”

Among the many movie projects I have tracked on the blog over the last few years is Moneyball. It is an object lesson in the hazards of Development Hell. Here is a post from back in December 2009 in which I spotlighted a key reason why the project had issues:

One of the more interesting Hwood stories this year was the strange saga of the movie Moneyball. In this LAT article, things seemed to be going along rather swimmingly (to mix sports metaphors about a baseball movie). Some key excerpts:

How did this unlikely project make it to the starting gate? It all started when a woman named Rachael Horovitz decided that she needed some good books to read when she went to Tahiti in 2003 for a much-needed vacation. Having spent years working at Fine Line and Revolution, Horovitz decided to strike out on her own and become a producer. She fell in love with “Moneyball,” not so much for its inside take on baseball, but because it was such a compelling example of a workplace drama. “For me, the movie is a love story about a man and his job,” she explained the other day.

So Moneyball is actually a “love story about a man and his job.”

[about the pitch meeting with Amy Baer at Sony]: “Everyone at Sony was incredibly supportive,” Horovitz said. “Of course, they all asked the same question — how do you make a movie out of it? I kept telling everyone ‘This is a story anyone can relate to, because it’s basically a second chance story. It’s about a guy whose early failure could have doomed him to failure, but managed to turn it into a huge life lesson.’”

Uh, so the movie is really a “second chance story” about a guy who fails, then learns a “huge life lesson.” Okay, got it.

“I personally identify with every movie I’m involved with, which I guess makes me a total narcissist,” [Mike] DeLuca said with a laugh. “But it doesn’t take much of a stretch to see New Line as the Oakland A’s, always having to make do with less while catching a lot of crap from the establishment for the crazy, unorthodox things we did.”

But really it’s an anti-authoritarian story…

And so you see the seeds of at least one of the reasons the project nearly blew up in that nobody seemed to really know what the hell the story was about!

Interesting that when I posted the movie trailer here, this comment by Teddy Pasternak reflected the above noted dynamic:

If this trailer is any indication of what the film will be like then they’re in trouble. It’s a mess. It’s trying to sell many different movies here and none of the elements are coming together. What are we supposed to follow here, one man’s struggle to build a great team? Is it a slick sports comedy? That’s what the opening music and the attempted humor is trying for.

Is it a film about betting or the mathematics/theory of baseball? Is Jonah Hill supposed to be some young genius that will change the game? Is he supposed to be the funny sidekick? Then be funny for godssakes! Having shots of Jonah Hill just standing and staring worked in Superbad and Cyrus but here it feels completely out of place. I was waiting for Brad Pitt to say “Get off the set, you’re in the wrong movie!”

Then it changes to a drama with shots of the daughter and that emotional music so the whole thing is invoking “Friday Night Lights” or “The Natural”. That should be the entire trailer! Play up the emotion and show one man’s journey as he takes on the establishment. The underdog! The struggling dad! The triumph of the human spirit!

Maybe it’s just me ’cause I don’t know the backstory, but I’m confused. I hope the movie is better than this trailer. Seriously, what are they thinking?

What is that old saying: “Jack of all trades, master of none.” Anytime a movie tries to appeal to too many target groups, it can end up being a mess.

You can see those same tensions reflected in this Variety article:

But “Moneyball’s” path to the plexes has taken some challenging hops as its scope has evolved under two previously attached directors, David Frankel and Steven Soderbergh, and a first draft by another Oscar-winning scribe, Steven Zaillian. It’s taken seven years for “Moneyball” to make it to the bigscreen. “The Social Network” — with a similar pedigree, tone and attempt to capture a zeitgeist moment — took two.
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One key hurdle for Sony and its marketing team heading into the pic’s Sept. 23 rollout: The film’s core story — centering on how baseball player value is analyzed — might be too “inside baseball” for some auds.

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Sony will be looking to attract fans beyond those in fantasy baseball leagues who don’t know OPS (on-base percentage plus slugging percentage — the key “Moneyball” stat) from the USPS.

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“What you’re trying to do is not make a sports movie, but something that has emotional truth to it,” said Todd Lieberman, producer on “The Fighter.” “That’s first and foremost.”

That might be the biggest single thing right there: A sports movie is not really a sports movie. It has to be about characters. And have real emotional resonance to it. So how to do that with Moneyball?

We’ll see soon. The movie rolls out on September 23.

Takeaway: Know what your story is about. Drill down into it and find its focus. Work up a logline that is clean and makes sense. If you can’t do that, then you may not have ‘found’ your story yet.

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