Moneyball, highly critical acclaim movie

Moneyball is a 2011 biographical sports drama film directed by Bennett Miller and distributed by Columbia Pictures.

The film is based on Michael Lewis' 2003 book of the same name, an account of the Oakland Athletics baseball team's 2002 season and their general manager Billy Beane's attempts to assemble a competitive team. In the film, Beane (Brad Pitt) and assistant GM Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), faced with the franchise's unfavorable financial situation, take a sophisticated sabermetric approach towards scouting and analyzing players, namely "submarine" pitcher Chad Bradford (Casey Bond) and Scott Hatteberg (Chris Pratt).

Columbia Pictures bought the rights to Lewis' book in 2004. After a number of years in development, the film was featured at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival and was released on September 23, 2011 to critical acclaim.

Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) is upset by his team's loss to the New York Yankees in the 2001 postseason. With the impending departure of star players Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, and Jason Isringhausen to free agency, Beane attempts to devise a strategy for assembling a competitive team for 2002 but struggles to overcome Oakland's limited player payroll. During a visit to the Cleveland Indians, Beane meets Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a young Yale economics graduate with radical ideas about how to assess players' value. Beane tests Brand's theory by asking whether he would have drafted him, Beane having been a Major League player before becoming general manager. Though scouts considered Beane a phenomenal player, his career in the Major Leagues was disappointing. After some prodding, Brand admits that he would not have drafted him until the ninth round and that Beane would probably have gone to college instead. Sensing opportunity, Beane hires Brand as the Athletics' assistant general manager.

Stan Chervin developed the first initial drafts of the screenplay after Columbia Pictures bought rights to Lewis's book in 2004, however, once Brad Pitt committed to the project in 2007 Chervin dropped out. Steve Zaillian was signed to write a second screenplay, and David Frankel was signed to direct. Steven Soderbergh was subsequently signed to replaced Frankel.

Moneyball has received high critical acclaim. The review tallying website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 164 of the tallied 173 reviews were positive, for a score of 95%. Watch movie news on Digitalfreedom.