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After working with Brad Pitt on the Oscar-nominated Moneyball, Jonah Hill will join the cast of another Pitt-produced movie, True Story. Actor James Franco will also be starring alongside Hill in the memoir-based drama written by Michael Finkel.
In the movie, Hill will play Finkel, who was a writer for The New York Times Magazine at the time when Christian Longo was arrested in Mexico and extradited to the U.S. for the murder of his wife and children. Longo (presumed to be played by Franco) had been using Finkel's identity while on the lam. Around this same time, Finkel was fired from his journalism job for fabricating stories. After Longo's extradition the stranger-than-fiction turn in the story goes that the only journalist Longo would speak to was Finkel.
Rupert Goold will direct under Pitt and Dede Gardner's Plan B Productions. The company is waiting for financiers but reportedly has a deal that may be wrapped this week.
Posted 02.27.12 by reelz -
With Major League Baseball's regular season winding down at the end of the month, director Bennett Miller's (Capote) adaptation of Moneyball is opening just in time for the start of the MLB Playoffs. Based on the 2003 non-fiction bestseller Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis, the sports biopic follows Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) as he builds a competitive baseball team, despite not having the largest payroll. Instead, Beane recruited players using a complex, statistics-based system called sabremetrics, which judges players on a variety of performance measurements.
watch the spots and preview clip >> Posted 09.18.11 by Ryan -
Columbia Pictures has released four new preview clips from Bennett Miller's (Capote) new sports biopic. Based on the 2003 non-fiction bestseller Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Michael Lewis, the movie tells the true story of Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt), a former professional baseball player who became the general manager of the Oakland Athletics and turned it into a winning team by taking a non-traditional approach to scouting players and fielding a team for a fraction of the cost of what larger market teams were spending at the time.
Moneyball had its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival on Friday and has so far earned an 86% approval rating among critics, with one reviewer calling it "nirvana" for baseball fans and "a smart, damned entertaining time" for "everyone else." It doesn't open in theaters until Sept. 23rd, but you can get a sense of what the movie is about in this collection of new clips and, more importantly, see Brad Pitt play 'hard ball' as Billy Beane.
WATCH THE PREVIEW CLIPS >> Posted 09.11.11 by BrentJS -
Former professional baseball player Billy Beane took over as general manager for the Oakland A's in 1998, quickly turning the team into a perennial playoff team despite having a much lower payroll than teams like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. Beane's management style was documented in the 2003 nonfiction bestseller Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, written by Michael Lewis.
Columbia Pictures started on the movie adaptation of Moneyball in 2008, going through several directors and screenwriters before Bennett Miller (Capote) finally took the helm and Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) rewrote the script. Brad Pitt plays Beane, with Jonah Hill as Beane's assistant manager.
The first trailer for Moneyball debuted in June, and the reaction was extremely positive, with Business Insider commenting that the movie "sounds like Oscar material" while SlashFilm said the trailer "makes the long process of making the film seem worth the wait.". The three recently released TV spots may not illicit the exact same response, but do help promote the movie's opening at the end of September.
watch the spots >> Posted 08.27.11 by Ryan -
The movie Moneyball has been in the works since 2008, when Columbia Pictures had Brad Pitt attached to star as Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, David Frankel (Marley & Me, The Devil Wears Prada) set to direct and Steven Zaillian (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) adapting the script from Michael Lewis' nonfiction bestseller Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.
Director Steven Soderbergh eventually replaced Frankel, but mere days before shooting began, Columbia pulled the plug after Sony Chairman Amy Pascal read Soderbergh's rewrite and disagreed with his unorthodox narrative structure that included using documentary techniques. Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network) was hired to rewrite the script, but Soderbergh was out, with director Bennett Miller (Capote) eventually replacing him.
With all the behind the scenes drama behind the production, the first trailer for the baseball biopic has finally been revealed, showing the eccentric Beane (Pitt) and his assistant (Jonah Hill) putting together a competitive baseball team with a small (in professional baseball terms) salary.
watch the trailer >> Posted 06.16.11 by Ryan -
The first full-length trailer for DreamWorks' latest 3-D animated feature, MegaMind, has just debuted online and it's hilarious. Like the movie, the trailer "flips the script" on the standard superhero story by telling things from the villain's perspective. Borrowing a page out of Superman's origin story, the villain MegaMind (Will Ferrell) — like his eventual nemesis, the heroic Metro Man (Brad Pitt) — was blasted off of his doomed planet and sent to earth shortly after his birth. The two inevitably become rivals, with MegaMind concocting one deathtrap after another for Metro Man and even kidnapping Metro Man's gal pal, the Lois Lane-inspired Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey).
watch the trailer and get movie details >> Posted 05.21.10 by BrentJS -
DreamWorks has finally released a teaser trailer for its latest 3-D animated feature, MegaMind (formerly OoberMind), a superhero movie with a twist. Instead of focusing on the heroic Metro Man (voiced by Brad Pitt), the story follows the hero's nemesis, the evil MegaMind (Will Ferrell).
Having finally defeated his arch-enemy, MegaMind finds himself missing the constant tête-à-tête. To give his villainy purpose once again, he creates a new hero to oppose him in Titan (Jonah Hill). However, Titan decides that he would rather be a villain, forcing MegaMind to switch sides and become a hero to defeat his creation.
MegaMind was directed by Tom McGrath (Madagascar) and also stars the voice talent of Tina Fey as the Lois Lane-esque Roxanne Ritchi.
Posted 03.20.10 by BrentJS -
DreamWorks Animation has recruited some top-flight talent to voice characters in its latest animated adventure, Oobermind, formerly titled Master Mind. It's been announced that Will Ferrell will voice the part of Oobermind, the titular supervillain role that was going to be Robert Downey Jr.'s first foray into animation and also rumored to have been offered to Ben Stiller. Other additions to the cast include Brad Pitt as Metro Man, a champion of good and Oobermind's arch-enemy, and Jonah Hill as Titan, a new superhero created by Oobermind to replace Metro Man. The trio of actors join Tina Fey, signed on to play a Lois Lane-esque character who reports on the city's superheroes.
Produced by Lara Breay and Denise Nolan Cascino, Oobermind is being directed by Tom McGrath and is scheduled for a fall 2010 release.
Posted 08.17.09 by BrentJS