Columbia Pictures Cancels 'Moneyball' Production at Last Minute

Moneyball, Michael Lewis' novel about the economics of baseball (to put it in a nutshell), was all set to begin production next week with Brad Pitt and Steven Soderbergh in tow. Read: the nerds have finally won, Lebowski!

Unfortunately that would-be -- and actually fictional -- revolution has now been delayed for the foreseeable future as Columbia Pictures, for all intents and purposes, pulled the plug on the movie.

On Friday, Columbia Pictures topper Amy Pascal placed the picture into "limited turnaround," giving the filmmaker the chance to set it up at another studio, with Warner Bros. and Paramount the prime targets.

According to Variety, Pascal didn't particularly care for the final draft of the script that the studio received, and was "uncomfortable" with "how Soderbergh's vision had changed" leading up to the preparation for production.

But still, it seems really bizarre that Columbia would call the dogs off at this point: they were earnestly committed to the film up until the last minute and with big names like Pitt and Soderbergh on, bailing on the project must mean something about the process smells awful to the higher-ups.

Moneyball might not be an easy sell because of the content and subject matter, but you would think that "Brad Pitt and Steven Soderbergh" would be more than enough to get another studio on board at this point.