First, let's briefly recap what we and others have reported so far: The film was set to begin shooting last week. Five days before the start of shooting, director Steven Soderbergh turned in a rewrite of the original script, which was written by Steven Zaillian, that Sony executives, led by co-Chairman Amy Pascal, did not like. The studio felt that Soderbergh, who was insistent that every event in the film had to have taken place in real life, was taking the film in an "artsy" direction that they weren't willing to gamble $58-million dollars on, so they killed it. That's the short version of events according to Amy Pascal anyway.

Since then a few more details about the project emerged. Movieline and Deadspin provided some new information in reports of their own, and today the New York Times has an article that sheds some light on Soderbergh's zeal for authenticity.

One reason was to win the approval of Major League Baseball, which was not happy with some factual liberties in Mr. Zaillian's version. Such approval is crucial in a baseball film that intends to use protected trademarks.

"Typically, on a film like this, we look at it for historical accuracy," said Matthew Bourne, a vice president of Major League Baseball for public relations. "We've been in touch with Soderbergh and Sony, and they've been receptive to our requests."

What baseball saw as accurate, Sony executives saw as being too much a documentary.

All of this brings us to the information provided to us by a tipster who'd been working on the project and has a decidedly different point of view than that of Amy Pascal and Sony.

First and foremost, Soderbergh had been upfront with the direction in which he intended to take the film from the very beginning of his employment. In fact, it was clear to all of us - whether in the Art Department or the Costumes Department, etc. – that Soderbergh intended to use real people to play themselves in the creation of the true story of Moneyball. Additionally, for months Soderbergh had been shooting interviews with real ball players and people from Billy Beane's past, and the studio approved these shoots. How could the studio then at the eleventh hour claim that his approach was a surprise to them? He intended to tell the true story rather than a fictitious version of the story. How innovative.

What exactly is wrong with making a movie accurate? And since when does an authentic film translate as an "art" film? I know numerous people that thought that Soderbergh's approach sounded insightful and interesting and true to the game and what really happened. If baseball lovers and non-baseball lovers alike in my large social network felt this way (not to mention the hundreds of bloggers that were fans of the concept), why couldn't this approach have universal appeal?

Regarding the notion that Sony executives were shocked to discover the direction Soderbergh planned on taking the film:

Soderbergh's script dated June 17, 2009 was not the first script that he handed in to Sony. On June 7th, Soderbergh submitted a draft to the studio with the following note on the first page:

"NOTE: Scenes involving Billy Beane's minor and major league career have been removed from this draft. They will be determined by filmed interviews with scouts, coaches, managers, players and family members who were with him at the time."

Sony executives read this draft. And Sony executives gave Soderbergh their notes. Clearly Amy Pascal did not read this draft – if she had, maybe the drama that began with the June 17th draft could have been avoided.

Another fact: Soderbergh handed in yet another draft dated June 10, 2009 with this note on the first page:

"NOTE: Billy Beane's minor and major league career will be shown via filmed interviews with scouts, coaches, managers, players and family members who were with him at the time. These interviews will comprise approximately ten percent of the film.

"Another ten percent of the film will consist of re-enactments of real events as remembered by the people playing themselves. The purpose of these scenes will be to provide set-up and perspective for subjects, situations, or relationships which currently appear in the screenplay without the requisite/normal amount of context."

Now why in the world was Amy Pascal so shocked (or, rather, "apoplectic" as it was relayed to the production team) when she read the June 17th draft? Could Soderbergh have made his intentions any more clear? Even if these executives did not read beyond PAGE 1, they would have known the direction in which he wanted to take the film – and they should have perhaps reported that to their boss. And maybe, just maybe, if there had been communication with their boss, maybe, just maybe, another avenue could have been taken rather than pulling the plug three days before the film was supposed to start shooting. For instance, maybe they could have delayed principal photography while script/concept issues were resolved.

Our tipster closed with this note:

On the day that Amy Pascal pulled the plug, there were 230 people that were working on Moneyball. Now those 230 people are all out of jobs.

When Soderbergh had to address a stage filled with crew members who were about to lose their jobs, he told us that just as Moneyball was the unorthodox version of building baseball teams, Moneyball the movie was the unorthodox way of making a film. Unfortunately, Amy Pascal does not believe in Moneyball as a concept; otherwise the film would be in its second week of shooting right now.

So there you have it—Another side of the story. All of this is obviously meaningless in the grand scheme of life, not to mention very "inside baseball" (pun intended), but it's so damn fun to talk about. We anxiously await the next bit of backbiting to emerge between the Sony and Soderbergh camps.

Why Did Sony Kill the Pitt/Soderbergh Film Adaptation of Michael Lewis' Moneyball [Previously]
MLB Approval Still Murky as Moneyball Circles the Drain [Movieline]
Money Worries Kill A-List Film at Last Minute [New York Times]
Soderbergh's Moneyball Script Too Real to Get Made [Deadspin]
pic via Vulture

Rumors have been swirling since Variety first reported last week that Soderbergh's vision for the film differed dramatically from the vision studio executives had for the film, but up to this point no one associated with the project has been willing to speak on the record about it.

But yesterday Sony's Amy Pascal, the studio executive in charge of the film, spoke to the LA Times' Patrick Goldstein. According to Pascal, what it all boiled down to was essentially simple—The studio loved screenwriter Steven Zaillian's original adaptation of Lewis' book, while Soderbergh felt the script lacked authenticity and rewrote it himself, making radical changes that Pascal and the studio weren't willing to gamble on, fearful that Soderbergh would turn it into an "artsy" film like Solaris or Schizopolis, especially when baseball movies traditionally don't do well at the box office outside of the United States. Soderbergh was insistent that everything in the movie had to have happened in real life.

Reports Goldstein:

Some changes to Zaillian's script were subtle, others were dramatic. At one point, Beane signs Scott Hatteberg, a journeyman catcher with a bad arm whom Bean can get for peanuts and turn into a first baseman. Beane loves Hatteberg's ability to get on base, but his staff is appalled — he just can't turn anyone into a slick-fielding first baseman overnight. In Zaillian's script, one of the coaches watches Hatteberg taking ground balls at a Little League field, his wife armed with a plastic laundry basket full of baseballs. She hits the balls to her husband off a tee, with their 4-year-old daughter backing him up down the line. One ball takes a bad hop and goes between Hatteberg's legs. When his daughter scoops it up, the coach quips: "Maybe we should sign her."

Soderbergh cut out the joke because it was the screenwriter's invention — the coach had never actually said it. He also cut out a scene where Beane gives a tongue-lashing to Jason Giambi, one of his departing free agents, again because it didn't actually happen. Zaillian's script was anchored by on-screen monologues by Bill James, the oddball guru of modern-day baseball statistics (who today works in the Boston Red Sox front office). James functioned as a Greek chorus for the film, offering wry, Yoda-like explanations about the complexity of the game.

Zaillian's deft renditions of James' maxims were funny and always to the point, allowing the audience the opportunity to see inside the game. In one monologue, James says: "If you score three runs and the other team scores four, you can be inspired as all hell but you still lost. The numbers represent the ineluctable sum of victories and defeats, and that cannot be made one iota larger or smaller than it is by PR campaigns, personal animosities or any of the greater and lesser forms of B.S." But in Soderbergh's draft, the James material had all vanished, presumably to be replaced by interviews with Beane's real-life associates.

At a "summit" held after Soderbergh turned in his draft of the script, he reportedly pleaded "trust me" to the Sony executives, who were obviously unwilling to do so. Besides Pitt, the film was also set to star comedian Demetri Martin as well as former ballplayers Darryl Strawberry, Mookie Wilson, David Justice and Lenny Dykstra, but Soderbergh's unrelenting zeal for authenticity proved to be the project's demise.

Bob Costas would be proud.

As for Michael Lewis, he seems unfazed by the developments with the film version of his book, telling MSNBC recently, "I don't understand why they bought it for a movie in the first place."

Sony's Amy Pascal Speaks Out About Moneyball [LA Times]
Image via Vulture

To be fair to Patrick, her choice of creepy seductress Jolie is really just an extension of Patrick's bizarre level of self/brand-awareness. Angelina is an action star and more age appropriate for the role of a 26-year-old than the 40-year-old Aniston. For marketing purposes it would be a much better fit. And what about America's sweetheart Mandy Moore? Too tall. We're imagining a similar sequence passed through Pitt's mind when he ditched the former "Friends" star for the one-woman African baby kidnapping gang.

Watch the video, shot by a group of Canadian bloggers, and you can see Patrick has already figured all of this out. The success of Danica Patrick has a lot to do with her being a really good driver wrapped in a fantastic marketing strategy. Fortunately, all of this is just hypothetical. Unless she dies in a horrible crash Patrick is only at made-for-TV movie level. For a feature studio film with a big star she'll have to win the Indy 500 or get killed by terrorists.

[MyHogtown]

1. Try finding another leading man as charismatic as Paul Newman — who can ice skate. And, in the spirit of the original, he's got to pull off a crusty, ex-pro player/coach pushing 50 who can credibly oversee a rogue Charlestown Chiefs squad of misfits, hacks and ne'er-do-wells. And charm the ladies. And do his own skating. Never. Happen.

2. Weren't the sequels punishment enough? It took 25 years for some dark-hearted cynic at Universal to realize the studio hadn't bludgeoned its cult classic into franchise submission, but they made the most of the travesty in 2002, toplining Stephen Baldwin in the straight-to-DVD abortion Slap Shot 2: Breaking the Ice. When you thought it couldn't get any worse, Leslie Fucking Nielsen showed up last year to drive the Slap Shot 3: The Junior League nail into Newman's casket. We understand no legacy is safe in Hollywood, but in these punishing economic times, let's be responsible. Plunder Bull Durham or something for a while.

3. You can't replace the Hanson Brothers. Tempting as it may be to rope in some of the modern NHL's most outlandish characters as the Chiefs' infamous "retards," let's face it: People love the Hansons. It's not like Universal can go out, put black-rimmed glasses Sean Avery, Todd Bertuzzi and Claude Lemieux, and throw them in the locker room to deliver indelible (and NSFW) scenes like this:

4. Dean Parisot is no George Roy Hill. Director Hill was no genius. But for five films between Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Slap Shot, he was one of the '70s most expert arbiters of tone, character and action, winning an Oscar for The Sting in 1973 but arguably topping out with this ensemble comedy that perfectly captured the lower-middle-class angst of late-'70s America. Parisot, who's attached to direct the new version, parlayed his own 1988 Oscar for the Steven Wright short The Appointments of Dennis Jennings into the sterling efforts of Galaxy Quest and his most recent remake horror, Fun with Dick and Jane. Well done, Universal.

5. Everyone will have to wear helmets. Safety first, we know. But imagine this extraordinary sequence working with the entire cast's faces obscured:

God, please make it stop.

• Parisot skates to 'Slap Shot' remake [Variety]

In his brief speech, Tyson worried out loud about the perils concomitant with the documentary's breakout success: "I'm afraid of how much pussy and how much money I'm gonna get." So are we, suddenly! Let's never let Tyson apologist Helen Mirren near this man.

[Video Credit: Peter Knegt, Indiewire]

• “I’m Afraid Of How Much Money and How Much Pussy I’m Gonna Get” [The Lost Boy]

"I thought Jack Nicholson played a better Joker than Heath Ledger. I thought Aaron Eckhart deserves the Academy Award nomination because he delivered a better performance."

The hilariously bombastic clip, which also includes Screamin' A. Smith's pick for who should've replaced Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel Dawes (according to his exacting standards, she wasn't "fine" enough), after the jump.

Warning: If you have been taking a vacation from the Internets for the last 18 months or so and/or have never seen Batman Forever, there are some very mild spoilers in this clip. Buyer beware (and stuff):

• 1st And 10 [ESPN, clip via RedLasso]

• Screams and Smiles at Magic Mountain [kimkardashian.com]

With a flank of beef spitting on the rotisserie, [Hollywood Records exec group] Steal Thunder took the stage. Jeremy Piven got up and beat the heat by keeping the beat on the bongos. Then, Kid Rock decided to rock the stage. [...]

With the Stanley Cup front and centre on stage, [music exec Joey] Scoleri moved from vocals to guitar as Kid Rock (who his friends refer to as Bobby) led the party through 'Rock n' Roll' by Led Zeppelin, 'Gimme Three Steps' by Lynyrd Skynyrd, his own single 'All Summer Long' into 'Sweet Home Alabama' and then concluded with Grand Funk's take on 'Some Kinda Wonderful'. And it was!!

Word filtered through the hills of Malibu that the Stanley Cup was at the Wildmans' Fourth of July party, and guests were surprised to see Tom Hanks and Sylvester Stallone wander into the celebration. "I heard the Stanley Cup was here," said Hanks, who was excited to see hockey's greatest prize.

We encourage you to read the rest of the amazing, boldface-packed account. But for a less rosey-hued take on the day's activities, there's always the NY Daily News's, which doesn't gloss over all the busty Kid Skanks who used it as a makeup mirror. We can only imagine the illicit goings-on we have yet to hear about: perhaps Rock's ingenuity in converting the trophy into a pneumatic whippit-delivery device. Let's just try to enjoy all the good times had by the World's Greatest Hockey Achievement, before the inevitable rehab announcement comes from a sober NHL rep.

• Stanley Cup Journals: 13 [hhof.com]

"What he's done for me is irreplaceable," Simpson says about her newfound confidence. Fortified by a glass of chardonnay, she sets the record straight on coping with the tabloids, her acting career and, of course, her new, happy life with Romo. "It feels like forever," she says about the months they've been together. "I love this guy. Can you feel it?" You can't help but feel it.

"I'm not going to lie and say that I don't want to see Tony and me in the pictures. It is good airplane reading if you throw it away when you get off; I'm good at that. I am not the type of person who believes everything she reads, but I like to look at photos and see what people are wearing."

"The cute story is that my family and I were watching a Cowboys game. I was going through my divorce and—Tony would die if I told you this—but [on television there was a story] about him. They said his celebrity dream crush was Jessica Simpson. My family was like, 'Did you just hear that?' His picture came up and I'm like, He's really cute. Then I heard [that I was his crush], and I'm like, Oh my gosh! ...One of my best friends played on a basketball team with Tony. He introduced Tony to my dad, and they hung out. Then Tony e-mailed my dad, 'Cute date,' when we were at the Country Music Awards [last November], because we were sitting next to each other in the audience and I guess we made a camera shot. My dad was like, 'Look what Tony said.' I said, 'Give him my e-mail address. We'll see if he's good with words.' Then he e-mailed me, and we flirted over e-mail and on the phone. We got to know each other by talking, which I think is the best way. We set up our first date on November 20. Today is our four-month anniversary, but it seems like we've been together for so much longer. I said five months to him today, and [Tony] goes, 'Baby, that hurts my feelings that you don't even know.'"

"He reintroduced me to myself. I thought that I had to be deeper, more profound and more artsy. You change with the guys you date. [I thought] I had to be more intellectual. Come on—just be yourself! Tony taught me that because he loves me [as me]. He made me feel comfortable [being myself] again."

"...I think it's ironic that I fell in love with a man I thought I would never be interested in because he's an athlete. I was always, An athlete? Heck no. Because it reminded me of being married. This article could come out and Tony and I could be broken up, but he still deserves all the accolades for bringing me back to who I am."

Earlier: Glamour's '50 Most Glamorous' Does Not Include Cover Model Jessica Simpson Something Blue

[Photo Credits: Getty Images]

• NHL players resembling entertainers [sportsillustrated.cnn.com via ONTD]

I'll bet Davis has more luck making it to a second round of investment than he will making it to the second round of the playoffs.

• Apple's "1984" ad
• Monster.com from 1999
• CareerBuilder.com from 2005
• GoDaddy from 2005
• Xerox from 1977
• E*Trade from 1999
• Pets.com from 2000
• Computer.com from 2000
• SalesGenie.com from 2007
• OurBeginnings in 2000

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Douché [The Gawker Shop]

The project is in such an early phase of development that the script won't even be written until after the conclusion of the WGA strike, but we've already picked out a pivotal moment from Namath's life that will become the centerpiece of the biopic's eventual trailer, proving beyond the shadow of a doubt that even if the football scenes end up a little unconvincing, the unselfconscious Gyllenhaal was the perfect choice to portray Broadway Joe:

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