'Moneyball' Trailer #2
Rounding out today's batch of 'second-look' trailers (see also Killer Elite and In Time) we've got the alternate second trailer for Bennett Miller's Moneyball, which stars Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill as two men whose stat-based approach to building a baseball team had a deep and lasting effect on the business behind the game. This is a slightly expanded version of the first trailer with some extra footage (Philip Seymour Hoffman speaks!) and the same heart-tugging blend of earnest pathos and 'up against the wall' desperation, all set to music that Friday Night Lights fans should find quite familiar.
In other words, it's basically the same trailer, only with a little more of everything. But after covering so much of the behind the scenes wrangling that led to this true story of Billy Beane and the Oakland A's hitting the screen, how can we not toss this one your way?
If you're a sucker for unlikely success stories, sports-related or not, Moneyball should already be one of your most-anticipated films for 2011. Even if the subject matter isn't really in your typical interest zone, there is appeal in the fact that Brad Pitt appears to be doing some of his best work in a while, and watching Jonah Hill work in rare dramatic fashion should be something new for many audiences.
Moneyball will play the Toronto Film Festival in September, and opens wide via Sony on September 23.
Based on a true story, Moneyball is a movie for anybody who has ever dreamed of taking on the system. Brad Pitt stars as Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A's and the guy who assembles the team, who has an epiphany: all of baseball's conventional wisdom is wrong. Forced to reinvent his team on a tight budget, Beane will have to outsmart the richer clubs. The onetime jock teams with Ivy League grad Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) in an unlikely partnership, recruiting bargain players that the scouts call flawed, but all of whom have an ability to get on base, score runs, and win games. It's more than baseball, it's a revolution – one that challenges old school traditions and puts Beane in the crosshairs of those who say he's tearing out the heart and soul of the game.