The CEO of Activision is getting a cameo in Moneyball, but not as himself. Oh, and he’s only in it as a favor to the director.
When the trailer for Moneyball first appeared on the Web, a lot of savvy viewers did a double take when Brad Pitt meets the owner of the Oakland Athletics. This was because the latter character bore an uncanny resemblance to Activision CEO Bobby Kotick. Well, it turns out that it was Kotick in the trailer.
Speaking to Reuters, Kotick confirmed his role in the movie (based on Michael Lewis’s book), explaining that he wound up getting cast because of his friendship with the film’s director Bennett Miller:
“We were having dinner and Bennett was talking about Moneyball and he asked me a little bit about an owner’s psychology and what an owner would be like. I started reading the script and I said, I really think the words don’t capture how an owner would react to this part of the conversation. I also loved Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball . We were having this back and forth and Bennett said ‘why don’t you do it? It would make the role very authentic.’ And I said, ‘I will, but only if you made my Call of Duty Endowment movie.'”
Miller kept up his end of the bargain, creating a movie for Kotick’s Call of Duty Endowment charity, which helps military veterans reintegrate into society.
Moneyball is due out in theaters on September 23.
Source: Reuters via Giant Bomb
