The script for Moneyball, by Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin, is easily one of the most entertaining I've read in a while. In fact, I can't think of another movie I'm looking forward to more this fall.

I love the look (shot by Batman Begins and The Dark Knight cinematographer Wally Pfister), and the Friday Night Lights-esque music toward the later half doesn't hurt either. In fact, there's an almost Jerry MaGuire quality to the whole thing that has me cautiously hoping for a similar vibe.

Moneyball hits theaters September 23rd...


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[This message has been edited by TCTTS (edited 6/16/2011 12:03p).]

Entertainment Tonight is awesome. "Malta, which is a small island off the coast of Italy!" Holy crap, learn something new every day.

Cant freaking wait for this movie.

One of my favorite books. Hilarious to see how they portray ron washington

I saw at IMDB that one of the characters in the movie is Ed Wade.

Is this based on a true story?

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=moneyball

Trailer looks good, this is one of my favorite books so I'm super stoked. People like to crap on moneyball because the A's couldn't win in the playoffs, but it absolutely forced people who are concerned about winning to change the way they looked at the game.

Sorkin

wow...looks surprisingly good.

i hope they give bill james the credit he deserves.

also, i noted that royce clayton, former SS, will be playing miguel tejada.

My fiance, a former Aggie baseball player, landed a small role in this movie. Last year before they started filming they had a "tryout" for the baseball teams in the movie. He got the role of Jeff Tam, a pitcher for the A's. No speaking part or anything, just got to pitch when they were recreating the games. It was a pretty cool experience as he got to go to Oakland and film on the field and all. We are excited to see if any of his parts made the movie or if he ended on the cutting room floor.

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Trailer looks good, this is one of my favorite books so I'm super stoked.

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Very little of the trailer happened in the book, from what I could tell. I loved the book, but I have a feeling it'll have very little similarity to it. doesn't mean the movie can't be good, but if you're expecting it to be like the book, I have a feeling you'll be disappointed. still, making a movie about something relatively dry like a GM using stats to find value in baseball is nice to see.

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People like to crap on moneyball because the A's couldn't win in the playoffs, but it absolutely forced people who are concerned about winning to change the way they looked at the game.

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One of the points the book made about them not winning was that the value was over a large sample. over 162 games, you can be expected that X # of walks will = so many more wins (or whatever). over a short series, there can be a lot of variation that will throw things off.

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Very little of the trailer happened in the book, from what I could tell.

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Of course. It's a movie.

Updated the initial post with a link to the official, HD version of the trailer.

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Of course. It's a movie.

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I was replying to someone saying they loved the book, so they were super stoked for the movie. if the movie is very different than the book, liking the book has little relation to whether you'll like the movie.

heck of a cast.

It's going to be tough to get over how little Hoffman resembles Art Howe.

but you're cool with ol' brad pitt?

I had no idea what Beane looked like. I've known what Art looks like since I was in grade school.

they got him looking about as much like howe as one could hope, I think:

Looks Great!!!

I want to watch it for no other reason than to figure out what the Hollywood happy ending is going to be.

WOOOO, we won the AL West.

The Black Keys make an "appearance."

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I want to watch it for no other reason than to figure out what the Hollywood happy ending is going to be.

WOOOO, we won the AL West.

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what are the odds they talk about giambi's and tejada's steroid use?

I haven't watched the trailer so take this for what it's worth...


...but I think this is a pretty dumb idea to make a movie out of. Is the premise going to be the philosophical shift that Beane drove in baseball or just a re-cap of that season for the A's?

think of it like facebook...the drama will no doubt come from billy beane as trailblazer, trying to convince people that there's a different way, then watching that belief come to fruition. plenty of movies have used this template, so i'm sure they'll use something similar. it's obviously going to skip over a lot of the details about the stats and history of how baseball players had been scouted. but you should probably watch the trailer and you can get an idea of what the movie will probably be like.

I havent read the book but it looks like they hire a stat geek to help them analyze the players they should go after and put on their team.

That is exactly what Theo Epstien did with the Red Sox and they won 2 World Series.

Agreed. It appears the magic formula is sabermetrics plus liberal use if steroids.

The only thing I really see in that trailer (besides some personal interations where they are building a coherent story) that didnt come from the book was what looks like the replacement of Paul DePodesta's role with whoever that is thats played by Jonah Hill.

I'm excited for the movie, because I like Sorkin and I'm sure it will be well made.

That said, I found the wwtdd posting pretty humorous.

http://www.wwtdd.com/2011/06/moneyball-has-a-new-trailer/

I thought Jonah Hill copied Seth Rogen again and dropped a ton of weight? He's a complete fat **** here again...

Hill's part of the movie was shot before he started to lose the weight... this is what he looks like now:

Getting some pretty good Rotten Tomatoes love.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/moneyball/

sorry,....nm

[This message has been edited by agracer (edited 9/15/2011 2:48p).]

Halfway through the book. Can't wait til friday.

Excellent movie. I'd definitely call it a Sorkin take on a sports movie- it's very talky, and relatively little takes place on the field, this movie's all in the clubhouse. Pitt and Hill were good, Hoffman wasn't really given much to do, so he's kind of wasted here. Don't go see it if you have an aversion to Pitt of any kind, because he literally never leaves the screen. He comes off very likable here though, I thought.

Not a baseball fan at all but I still really enjoyed it- so I'd assume there will be even more for the baseball fans to like.