Acclaimed author Michael Lewis wasn't sure if 'Moneyball' would
make a great movie. As he told Brad Pitt upon selling the rights
to his 2002 non-fiction book about the rise of sabermetrics and
Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, "Don't call me and
blame me when it doesn't work." Fortunately for Lewis, it does.
Out in theaters Friday, 'Moneyball' tells the story of Beane,
but with a twist that made a big-screen adaptation difficult to
fathom. "The book -- I thought, when I was writing it, grandly
-- is the biography of an idea," Lewis told Moviefone.
'Moneyball' isn't the first film about an idea -- after all,
'Inception' was technically about one, too. But Christopher
Nolan's blockbuster featured gravity-defying stunts and city-
folding action; 'Moneyball' is about a mid-market baseball team
taking pitches and it climaxes with a game against the Kansas
City Royals. That it works as a film is due in large part to
Pitt's Oscar-worthy lead performance, Bennett Miller's direction
and the script -- co-written