Prerna Singh
‘Moneyball’ is a biographical film based on the eponymous non-fiction book by Michael Lewis, which focuses on the Oakland Athletics baseball team’s 2002 season and its general manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt). The story follows Beane, his assistant general manager, Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), and their unusual methods to put together a team of competitive players under a limited budget. Peter Brand is an economics graduate from Yale who proposes the sabermetric approach for selecting players. They are faced with a lot of opposition as they test their theory and make many unorthodox choices to put together a team.
Eventually, the baseball world starts to see the phenomenal results of this approach, which goes on to change the scouting and evaluation process for baseball players forever. The 2011 film was widely appreciated for its performances and screenplay. It proved to be a success at the box office as well as with the critics. It also earned six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor for Pitt, and Best Supporting Actor for Hill. Here is a look at the primary locations where ‘Moneyball’ was shot!
Moneyball Filming Locations
Co-starring Chris Pratt and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the film was shot on a reduced budget after Pitt agreed to a pay cut. Interiors of the Ontario International Airport – 2900 E. Airport Drive, Ontario, California – and the Phoenix Municipal Stadium at 5999 E. Van Buren Street, Phoenix, Arizona, were briefly part of the film. Several scenes were also shot in Oakland, located on the east side of San Francisco Bay, California. Here are the specific locations!
Boston, Massachusetts
Although the film was able to shoot at Fenway Park- 4 Yawkey Way, Boston, Massachusetts for a day, there wasn’t enough money to film in other ballparks, which is why Dodger Stadium became very important to the filming of ‘Moneyball.’ Some shots were also taken at the Lansdowne Street, just outside Fenway Park.
California
Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum or the Oakland Coliseum, located at 7000 Coliseum Way, is Oakland A’s home stadium and served as a filming site for the movie. The shooting went on for eight days at Blair Field, Recreation Park – 4700 E. 10th Street, at Long Beach – for outdoor scenes featuring the spring training facility for Oakland A in Arizona. Shots were also taken for the coach’s office and the locker room in this stadium.
In an interview, Todd Christensen, the location manager for ‘Moneyball,’ shared that the team had trouble dealing with the paparazzi as they would go to extreme lengths to photograph Brad Pitt. They ultimately had to hire the adjoining Recreation Park so they could keep the paparazzi away from the filming site.
Dodger Stadium, at Elysian Park, was passed off as eight different stadiums. This stadium was also used to recreate the 1984 game between the Dodgers and the Mets in ‘Moneyball’ when Beane played for the team from New York. Dodger Stadium is one of the favorite spots for production as it offers a large parking lot and is surrounded by the picturesque downtown Los Angeles. The stadium charges around $10,000 a day for the parking lot and about $25,000 for the stadium itself.
The film also hired roughly 700 extras as spectators. The bits in the film when Beane goes to clear his head during a particularly stressful time is actually Long Beach, which is shown in the movie as Beane drives through Oakland. Director Bennett Miller was very impressed with the outcome as the shots looked really good on screen with the cranes and ships stationed at the Port of Long Beach. Scenes shot in the studio were filmed at Sony Pictures Studios, located at 10202 W. Washington Boulevard, Culver City.
Read More: Is Moneyball a True Story?
