'Capote' Director Bennett Miller Playing 'Moneyball'

You usually see a quicker fall by the other shoe when a filmmaker comes seemingly out of nowhere to find great success. Bennett Miller's Capote was released in 2005, and even though Phil Hoffman won the Oscar and Miller's feature debut was nominated for four other awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Still, this is the first project he's been linked to since.MUE7VTCUFP3B Miller has risen to the top of the wish list to direct Moneyball, the project Sony/Columbia pulled away from Steven Soderbergh this summer, literally three days before it was scheduled to start shooting in Phoenix. The film is the story of Billy Beane, general manager of the Oakland A's, who maximized his team's smaller pool of money to be one of the more competitive teams in the American League throughout the past decade. Brad Pitt was in line to star as Beane when Soderbergh was still attached to direct, and that has apparently not changed in the months since. Variety reports that the arrival of Miller might mean a smaller budget, which is something Columbia desperately wants because it doesn't see the film as having an audience outside US borders. The studio has been looking for an indie director to take over the project for just that reason, and was apparently also considering (500) Days of Summer's Marc Webb. There's no word on when the film will go back into production, but it could be around the time of spring training. That would make some sense for the subject matter, and it would give Miller a few months to get up to speed on where the production is and what he'd like to do with it. Then there is the question of Pitt's involvement: Is he still going to want to do this project without Soderbergh? He bailed on State of Play a couple years ago, so that's something to keep your eye on.