The 2002 Oakland Athletics were a Major League Ballclub that defied the odds.  With a payroll about a third that of teams like the New York Yankees, the Billy Beane (to be played by Brad Pitt) led team managed to come in first place in their division.

Steven Soderbergh will direct the film, which will be an adaptation of Michael Lewis’ best-selling book, and is out to set a new standard of realism in sports films.

He’s already halfway there as he already has the support of Major League Baseball which will allow him to use real game footage, and shoot at a variety of American League ballparks across the country.  He also plans to use real players to make up much of the cast.

In an inteview with MTV he explained, “Anybody who is not actively playing who was on the 2002 team has been approached,” he said. “We’ve got about 60 percent of them. We have [manager] Art Howe, we’ve got Rick Peterson, the pitching coach. We’ve got three-quarters of the scouts who were there. … The guys on the team we can’t get — we’re casting real people who can play and perform. We’ll have the real footage and then we’ll go to the close-up with our guy in it, and it should be seamless.”