Sport and Cinema.com

Sports movies scored well for the 2012 Academy Awards earning nominations in multiple categories

“Moneyball”, the business of baseball story, garnered a half-dozen nominations including Best Picture.

From Sony Pictures Home Entertainment comes “Moneyball” onto DVD, a film using the business of baseball as a backdrop to examine what drives people to take risks. Based on Michael Lewis’s non-fiction book of the same name, this is 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 acquire players.

In time for the holiday shopping rush comes the entire set of thirty films now combined into one DVD package (and available on Blu-ray) from ESPN’s acclaimed 30 for 30 series, a compelling “television film festival”. The 30 for 30 Limited Edition Collector Set is packaged in a collectible box & contains 30 for 30 Gift Sets Volume 1 & Volume 2 as well as an exclusive retro ESPN hat featuring the company’s original logo.

In this tense combat sports film directed by Gavin O’Connor (“Miracle”), Tom Hardy stars as an ex-Marine haunted by a tragic past who returns to his hometown of Pittsburgh and enlists his father, a recovered alcoholic and his former coach (Nick Nolte), to train him for an MMA tournament awarding the biggest purse in the history of the sport.

Legendary Pictures announced that Chadwick Boseman, who has appeared on “Justified,” “Fringe” and “Castle,” will play Dodger baseball great Jackie Robinson and will be joined by Harrison Ford to play Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers GM who with Jackie Robinson broke the color line in baseball in 1947.

‘Seeing Sylvester Stallone in Rocky when we were kids actually was the reason for us to start boxing in the first place,’ said Wladimir, ‘We are very excited to support this theatrical project.’

The stats are impressive – 8,000 filmmaking professionals from 70 nations involving over 400 films with more than $800 million in deals to be sealed over the next eight days. And they are all converging right in my backyard – Santa Monica, California. That averages out to about 30 new films every two hours – the majority of them world or U.S. premieres. It is the American Film Market, one of the biggest annual business gatherings of the independent motion picture production and distribution industry.

Premiering on ESPN Tuesday night is a new documentary film that chronicles the story of Chuck Wepner, the Man Behind the Legend

Over four weeks into its theatrical release, “Warrior”, the mixed martial arts movie is still packing a punch. The Lionsgate picture remains in the Top 25 draw ahead of “Cowboys &Aliens” and “Midnight in Paris”.

After a few roster changes, Sony Pictures’ baseball film, Moneyball heads into the box office game led by Brad Pitt as the marquee player. Based on a true story, Pitt portrays Billy Beane, a former ballplayer who never met expectations before switching to the business side of the sport as the general manager of the Oakland A’s. Heading into the 2002 season, he faces a daunting situation: his small-market Oakland A’s have lost their star players (again) to big market clubs (and their enormous salaries) and is left to rebuild his team and compete with a third of their payroll.