Brad Pitt was supposed to be working this summer. Months ago he signed on to star in Moneyball, directed by Steven Soderbergh, but then five days before the production officially started Sony Pictures pulled more than $50 million in financing and told Soderbergh and Pitt that they were free to take the project to other studios to see if they wanted to finance the disaster. No studio did. So now Brad is totally unemployed this summer, and the tabloids are in mourning. This was the summer Brad was supposed to be having a secret affair in Los Angeles with Jennifer Aniston! Alas, Brad probably spends his long, hot summer days in his underwear, drinking beer and helping Maddox build pillow forts.

When Sony first pulled the financing, the rationale behind the move was a bit cryptic. Was it because of something Brad did? Do studio executives hate Brad Pitt? Or was it something darker? Now Sony’s head Amy Pascal has spoken to the Los Angeles Times to explain why she pulled the plug. Basically, Pascal claims that Soderbergh wanted to make a friggin’ $60 million documentary, and that Soderbergh is too artsy-fartsy for his own good. It sounds like Pascal is still all about working with Brad, though. Blind item: Which Sony executive is a Brangaloonie?

It’s never an easy decision when a studio head has to pull the plug on a big movie, as Amy Pascal did last week when she shut down “Moneyball,” a $58-million Steven Soderbergh film that was set to star Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, the maverick general manager of the Oakland A’s who almost singlehandedly reinvented the way baseball scouts and develops young talent.

The movie, based on the bestselling book by Michael Lewis, wasn’t just in pre-production. It was literally five days away from filming when Soderbergh turned in a new version of the script that Pascal and her Sony team found unacceptable. The decision was so abrupt that the film’s producer, Michael DeLuca, got the call about it while on his honeymoon in Paris. As a courtesy to the talent, Pascal gave them an opportunity to try and set the film up elsewhere, but no other studio has shown any interest. So the movie remains at Sony, but will it ever get made? Will Pitt stick with the project? And what exactly went wrong?

“I’ve wanted to work with Steven forever, because he’s simply a great filmmaker,” Pascal says. “But the draft he turned in wasn’t at all what we’d signed up for. He wanted to make a dramatic reenactment of events with real people playing themselves. I’d still work with Steven in a minute, but in terms of this project, he wanted to do the film in a different way than we did.”

“Steven wanted to tell the story through these interviews with the real people, as they commented on Beane. But there are lots of ways to tell a true story. We were just more comfortable with what we thought was a wonderful draft from Steve Zaillian.”

For now, the project remains in limbo, with Sony having sunk nearly $10 million into the film already. The studio still needs to find out whether Pitt, who is intensely loyal to Soderbergh, will stay with the project. As Pascal put it: “We really hope we can still make this with Brad Pitt.”

Sony would also have to find a new director who is not only a good fit for the material but would pass muster with Pitt, who has director approval on his films. To find a director with enough stature or buzz to attract Pitt won’t be easy.

The most likely options would be for the studio to go in more of a comic direction — possibilities being Jay Roach or Jason Reitman — or toward a more dramatic choice, like Gary Ross or even George Clooney, who is putting the finishing touches on a two-year production deal with the studio. (My own pick would be someone with a sharp, subversive edge, like Pete Berg.)

Pascal insists there’s no bad blood between her and Soderbergh, saying the two plan to meet in the coming days to discuss other possible projects. In the meanwhile, she remains an ardent believer in the film. “We love this movie, we always have and we still want to make it. It’s a completely innovative way to tell a baseball story. It’s about wanting to believe in magic, which is what baseball is all about.”

I’d still say that makes “Moneyball” a longshot. Or to put it in baseball terms, this is a project that will need to stage a big late-inning rally to put a win up on the scoreboard.

[From The Los Angeles Times]

So it’s not Brad’s fault – and Brad might even leave the project if Soderbergh is being forced out. I did learn something new today – that Brad has “director approval” on his films. That’s so hardcore, it really is. Very few actors have that – usually the director signs on, and then starts casting a film. But not Brad Pitt – he attaches himself to a project and then gets to bring in the director of his choice. So where has all of that power gotten Brad? Unemployed and passed out in a pillow fort.

Here’s Pitt at a press conference for Inglourious Basterds on 5/21/09, credit: ANG/Fame Pictures