Hollywood Ink: Moneyball a Go, But is Brad Pitt Still In?

· And now, Chapter 17 of the Moneyball chronicles, in which the tortured path of Sony's bestselling book adaptation finally looks like its going to straighten out. (Actually, we got a pretty strong hint of that back in Chapter 16, when Jonah Hill confirmed he'd be in the cast when director Bennett Miller shoots the film this summer.) The latest word has many more details about timeline, additional casting (it's underway) and budget in particular -- $47 million. Hooray? [Deadline]

Of course it wouldn't be Moneyball unless Brad Pitt was suddenly whispered to be dropping out; more about that and the rest of Hollywood Ink after the jump.

· Anne Thompson passes along the Moneyball news with the note that Brad Pitt isn't necessarily on board with the budget slashed nearly 25 percent from the original Steven Soderbergh days: "Pitt really does want to get paid. He and Angelina Jolie live a rich globetrotting lifestyle, and Moneyball is one of the few movies around that might throw him some serious cash." Sony would try to reassure Pitt with the prospect of David Fincher's remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, except there's no script. Anyway, I'll stick to my original call from last summer: I still don't think it'll get made because no one wants to see it. [TOH]

· Conversely, everyone would probably go see a remake of Footloose, except Paramount can't keep its leading man locked in: Chace Crawford became the second star (after Zac Efron) to walk away from the coming-of-age dance drama. [EW]

· Meanwhile, Footloose originator Kevin Bacon will play an "alpha male" who starts an affair with Julianne Moore's character in the untitled Steve Carell marriage-crisis comedy; Moore will play Carell's wife while Ryan Gosling stars as the life coach working to restore his faith in, well, everything. [THR]

· On the one hand you've got to hand it to Universal for not falling back on too much recycled franchise garbage in the middle of its protracted slump. On the other... Ted? Seriously? A $65 million, hard-R rated, Seth MacFarlane-written, half-CGI/half-live action comedy about a man and his teddy bear? Just back away from the ledge, Uni, we can talk this through. [Deadline]