Last June, Steven Soderbergh’s adaptation of Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball fell apart only three days before shooting was set to begin.  With Brad Pitt as the lead, Moneyball focused on the true story of how the Oakland Athletics became a competitive team by relying on statistics rather than the higher payrolls of their competitors.  It’s unlikely for a film to reach production so soon with a big name director and star and have the plug pulled at the last minute.  However, even though Soderbergh has moved on to other projects (including another one about baseball) Sony Pictures is still looking to move the process forward and meeting with several directors including Marc Webb ((500) Days of Summer) and Bennett Miller (Capote).  Hit the jump to see if someone can finally hit this movie.

A feature film about a true, global price-fixing scheme for a corn product is not the sort of fare that inspires interest and laughs. In fact, it would probably inspire the very opposite. But if you can grasp at tendrils of insanity in the story, running fictionally wild, and put it in the hands of an incredibly able actor, you might have something like “The Informant!” Hit the jump to learn about the insane world of “The Informant!”

While it’s been kind of quiet on the giveaway front of late, I’ve got some cool stuff to giveaway to help promote the release of Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant!” So if you’re interested in getting a free t-shirt, a video camera pen, caps, mugs, coasters and more, hit the jump to see pictures and how you can enter. Also, if you were debating seeing “The Informant!” this weekend, here’s Matt’s review which tells you why you should go.

Catching liars is fun.  Watching someone lie badly is funny.  Watching someone lie badly when you know the truth is funnier.  Realizing you’ve been lied to isn’t funny at all.  Lies can be a valuable tool when you’re the dumbest guy in the room and when you manage to get away with lying to everyone else, it makes you the smartest guy even though the truth will out.  Director Stephen Soderbergh’s latest film, “The Informant!”, is built entirely out of lies but not in a surreal/everything’s subjective-kind of way.  It’s a film about the usefulness of lies and how like anything that’s fun, it can become addicting and it can be abused.  It’s a heavy theme but carried with the lightness Soderbergh brought to the “Ocean’s” movies, “The Informant!” is absolutely delightful.

I really love how busy Steven Soderbergh keeps himself.  The prolific director has directed 13 films so far this decade and always has a couple of projects lined up next.  One of those many projects that he has been talking about recently has been a biography of Liberace with Michael Douglas playing Liberace and Matt Damon playing his longtime lover, Scott Thorsen.  Even though we already kind of knew that this was one of the upcoming projects for Soderbergh, he has now confirmed that the project is definitely moving forward by saying that they are already doing some wardrobe and costume tests for Douglas.  You can get some more details when you click on the jump.

From the exciting world of movie distribution deals comes news that the latest films from directors Steven Soderbergh and Antoine Fuqua will both find their audiences.  Fuqua’s already completed “Brooklyn’s Finest” will go out via Overture after an earlier deal for domestic distribution fell through.  Meanwhile Steven Soderbergh’s “Knockout”, which begins shooting next January, has caught the interest of Lionsgate, the proud studio behind  this week’s number one film “I Can Do Bad All By Myself.”  More after the jump.

Warner Bros. has released a preview of their upcoming 2009 movies. In the preview, they’ve got updated synopsis’ along with new images from “Whiteout”, “Ninja Assassin”, “The Invention of Lying”, “The Informant!” and a few others. So if you’d like to see the new images and read what’s coming later this year (it’s a lot of great stuff), it’s all after the jump:

Yahoo Movies has premiered a new poster for Steven Soderbergh’s “The Informant” and it’s after the jump. If you aren’t familiar with the film, you need to watch this. Trust me; it’s a film you should be looking forward to. Anyway, while I like the first poster more than the new one, it’s still worth checking out. Also, it’s Soderbergh and Damon. Need I say more?

The saga of “Moneyball” continued today as Sony announced that Brad Pitt is still attached to star in the big screen adaptation of Michael Lewis’ baseball book.  After unceremoniously pulling the plug on the Steven Soderbergh helmed project just days before filming was set to begin, Sony has not only kept the film in development but has now enlisted the great Aaron Sorkin to redraft Steve Zaillian’s original script.  More after the jump…

In some surprising news, Variety is reporting that Sony has just ditched Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming adaptation of Michael Lewis’ best-selling book “Moneyball” starring Brad Pitt.  Apparently, Sony Co-Chairman Amy Pascal put the film into “limited turnaround” after reading Steven Zallian’s latest version of the script which Pascal says differed wildly from earlier versions and she was no long comfortable with how Soderbergh’s vision had changed the project.  In this limited turnaround, the film is now available for Soderbergh to take it to another studio, with reportedly Paramount and Warner Bros. in the front-running.

The film was set to begin filming tomorrow but on Friday, Pascal saw the latest script and that’s when everything was thrown out of whack.  From Variety:

If a new financier doesn’t emerge by today, Columbia will re-examine options that include replacing Soderbergh (and hoping Pitt doesn’t ankle), delaying the film until Pascal and the filmmaker find themselves in synch on the script or pulling the plug.

Director Steven Soderbergh won an Academy Award for Best Director for his 2000 ensemble drama Traffic, while also being nominated in the same category that year for Erin Brockovich. Since then, he has juggled box office successes, like Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve and Ocean’s Thirteen, with more experimental films, such as Bubble and his latest, The Girlfriend Experience, which are part of his six-picture deal at 2929 Entertainment.

Hiring non-actors and having their dialogue largely improvised, Soderbergh chose to cast popular, award-winning adult film star Sasha Grey in the lead role of Chelsea, a young woman who makes a living as a high-end prostitute, selling a “girlfriend experience” to her clientele. Throughout the low-budget indie, which explores the value we place on money and how we define pleasure, the filmmaker makes intriguing, unusual choices in his camera angles, lighting and scenery.

At the film’s press day, Soderbergh spoke about what compelled him to make The Girlfriend Experience, as well as yet another unusual filmmaking choice to animate a character in his next project, Moneyball (the story of Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane’s successful attempt to put together a baseball club on a budget, by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players), which he starts filming in June.

Here’s what he had to say:

The movie world was abuzz when Variety reported in the spring of 2008 that Steven Soderbergh was possibly looking to cast an “adult film actress” in the lead of his low-budget indie, “The Girlfriend Experience.” Those in the know laid their odds on Sasha Grey, an award-winning porn star who’s known for her love of art house movies and noise music as much as her somewhat extreme on-screen performances. And soon enough, the rumors proved right. The title of the movie refers to the type of service Grey’s character offers, a class of high-end prostitution that offers more than just a quickie but instead a true “girlfriend experience,” which can include movie dates, dinner, vacations, and the like. Of course, this comes with a large price tag and blurred lines between what’s real and what’s not so real, something both one of her clients and Sasha’s character experience in the movie. Another interesting twist in “The GfE” is that Grey’s character Chelsea has a live-in boyfriend, Chris, a personal trainer who is also wrestling with self-promotion and success.

I got a chance to chat with Sasha over the phone, and here’s what she had to say about all things Grey.