The Big Picture, Ben Fritz
The Big Picture, Ben Fritz
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The Big Picture
The Fight for the Future of Movies

Author: Ben Fritz

Narrator: Timothy Andrés Pabon

Unabridged: 9 hr 44 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/31/2018


Synopsis

The stunning metamorphosis of twenty-first-century Hollywood and what lies ahead for the art and commerce of filmIn the past decade, Hollywood has endured a cataclysm on a par with the end of silent film and the demise of the studio system. Stars and directors have seen their power dwindle, while writers and producers lift their best techniques from TV, comic books, and the toy biz. The future of Hollywood is being written by powerful corporate brands like Marvel, Amazon, Netflix, and Lego, as well as censors in China.Ben Fritz chronicles this dramatic shakeup with unmatched skill, bringing equal fluency to both the financial and entertainment aspects of Hollywood. He dives deeply into the fruits of the Sony hack to show how the previous model, long a creative and commercial success, lost its way. And he looks ahead through interviews with dozens of key players at Disney, Marvel, Netflix, Amazon, Imax, and others to discover how they have reinvented the business. He shows us, for instance, how Marvel replaced stars with “universes,” and how Disney remade itself in Apple’s image and reaped enormous profits.But despite the destruction of the studios’ traditional playbook, Fritz argues that these seismic shifts signal the dawn of a new heyday for film. The Big Picture shows the first glimmers of this new golden age through the eyes of the creative mavericks who are defining what our movies will look like in the new era.

About Ben Fritz

BEN FRITZ is a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, covering the entertainment industry. He has also covered Hollywood for the Los Angeles Times and Variety, and is coauthor of the best-selling All the President’s Spin. A graduate of Swarthmore College, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Joe on April 27, 2018

Ben Fritz of the Wall Street Journal loves movies. He is passionate about the experience of communally watching a film, the unique ability for artists to tell their stories, and the Hollywood business machine behind it all. But man, he hates franchise features. From Marvel and DC to Star Wars and St......more

Goodreads review by Zachary on March 03, 2018

I don’t go to the movies anymore. That might surprise you if you know me, as I minored in Film Studies while pursuing a Journalism degree some 20 years ago. (Though that was more of a time management move on my part — it was easy to cut film class if they were showing a popular film that you could r......more

Goodreads review by Elena on February 11, 2025

Great book on film industry. Ben Fritz nicely explains how film economics works and why original movies and art house films got replaced by large franchises. I knew that there’s no recipe for success in making a movie, it’s a bit like VC. However, I was surprised and loved how old business model was......more