‘Moneyball’: Activision Blizzard’s Bobby Kotick Plays Baseball Mogul in Film (Video)

Perhaps his job as CEO of Activision Blizzard — one of the most successful video game companies in the world — just isn’t challenging enough for Bobby Kotick. Therefore, not only is he trying to purchase MySpace and go head-to-head with Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, but he’s also going Hollywood with an acting role in the film Moneyball, which stars Brad Pitt and will be released by Columbia on Sept. 23.

Moneyball is the true-life story of Billy Beane, the inventive manager a decade ago of the underfunded and, as it turns out, underestimated Oakland Athletics baseball team. Pitt plays Beane and Kotick is his employer Stephen Schott, who co-owned the team back then.

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STORY: Executive Suite — Bobby Kotick

Kotick’s role is small and it remains to be seen how much screen time he’ll have after final edits. The part he plays though, is pivotal, and one of his few lines is a perfect setup for the movie, so Kotick appears in one of the trailers.

At the 17-second mark of the trailer, Kotick’s character tells Pitt’s character: “We’re not in New York. Find players with the money that we do have.”

Kotick was cast, insiders say, because he’s a friend of director Bennett Miller and “he seemed to fit the role.”

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“He never acted before but did a pretty good job,” said another insider.

Kotick’s scenes were filmed at the old Los Angeles Times offices in downtown L.A. over a four-day period and the San Francisco skyline was added later.

Kotick was unavailable for comment, as he has been ever since it was revealed two weeks ago that he was part of an investment group that is bidding for a majority stake in News Corp’s. MySpace social-network asset. Kotick’s investment would be a personal one unassociated with Activision Blizzard, sources have said.

Moneyball also stars Jonah Hill, Robin Wright, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Chris Pratt. Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian wrote the screenplay based on the book by Michael Lewis.