Nominated for six Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Actor, Columbia Pictures’ critically acclaimed sports-oriented film “Moneyball” is based on the true story of Billy Beane (Brad Pitt)—once a would-be baseball superstar who, stung by the failure to live up to expectations on the field, turned his fiercely competitive nature to management.
Directed by Bennett Miller (“Capote”), “Moneyball” also bagged nominations for Best Supporting Actor (Jonah Hill), Adapted Screenplay, Editing and Sound Mixing.
In 2003, former Salomon Brothers bond trader-turned-author Michael Lewis, at the time best known for such business and politics bestsellers as “Liar’s Poker” and “The New New Thing,” published a book about baseball, “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.”
It isn’t just about baseball. On the surface, it is about how the under-funded, underrated Oakland A’s takes on an unfair system of big-money and powerhouse teams. But it is really about the fascinating mix of men behind a major cultural shift, and how a risky vision, born from necessity, becomes reality, when a ragtag team of cast-offs, rejected due to unfounded biases, get the chance to finally prove their potential.
At first glimpse, Lewis’ best-selling and groundbreaking book does not lend itself to a film adaptation. The book is a study of inefficiencies and oversights within the markets of the game of baseball and features case studies of undervalued items (players, strategies, tactics), using analyses of statistics and theories.
Lewis’ book sheds light on the hindrances of “groupthink” and how irrational intuition and conventional “wisdom” have dominated institutions throughout history. Challenging a system invariably provokes a fight.
The film “Moneyball” builds its foundation from the experience of one man who chooses to take on that fight. Piercing through the layers of statistics, the film finds the quieter, deeper, and more personal story of Billy Beane, which bristles with moments of self-doubt and real-life courage.
After writer Stan Chervin found the essence of the story—focusing on Billy’s relationship with his daughter, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), and the team, with all three threads coming to a climax in the A’s 20th consecutive win—screenwriters Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin would face a compelling challenge.
Though the film joins a storied cinematic genre, it defies the structure of the typical sports movie that tilts toward that big championship moment.
On the contrary, the film is about redefining the very picture of success. Zaillian and Sorkin would hone in on Beane’s inner drive to succeed—not just for himself but for all the guys who had wound up on the margins of baseball.
Says Zaillian: “Trying to change any venerable institution always leads to the same things: suspicion, fear, contempt and condemnation. This, along with the collision that results, is the central theme in ‘Moneyball.’ It’s the central theme any time, in any field—art, science, industry, politics, sports—when someone has, and acts on, a new idea.”
Sorkin says: “I don’t think ‘Moneyball’ is any more about Sabermetrics than ‘The Social Network’ is about coding. Tired of losing and not having the resources to win conventionally, he takes a chance on a very unconventional strategy.”
Sorkin continues: “Necessity is a great motivator. Billy knew that if he played the game the same way as the Yankees, he’d lose. He had to change the game. The first guy through a wall always gets bloodied and Billy takes his share of hits—from the fans, from sports writers and baseball experts, from his manager, scouts and even from history.”
A lot of what the story is about is what Billy Beane and his partners in analysis put into practice was not entirely new. Fans, stats junkies and math whizzes had been trying to bring empirical evidence to the sport for years.
The concept goes back to baseball historian Bill James, who coined the term “Sabermetrics” to describe a new objective science of using stats analysis to predict the future value of a baseball player. James wrote that the subject of baseball should be approached “with the same intellectual rigor and discipline that is routinely applied by scientists to unravel the mysteries of the universe.”
“Moneyball” opens across the Philippines on March 7. Visit www.columbiapictures.com.ph for trailers, exclusive content and free downloads. Like us at www.Facebook.com/ColumbiaPicturesPH and join our fan contests.
