The Big Picture

The Fight for the Future of Movies

By: Ben Fritz

Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon

The stunning metamorphosis of twenty-first-century Hollywood and what lies ahead for the art and commerce of film

In 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.

©2018 Ben Fritz (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Very informative

The state of the movie industry has never been in such a state of turmoil than it is now. Ben Fritz explains how we got here, the players involved and what the future holds. This was well researched and written. The reading was superb. A must listen to anyone who is a fan of the movies and for those who contemplate a career behind the camera.

Excellent Analysis

An excellent analysis of where the movie market has been and where it has been going. Major theme is how and why the franchise film has taken over the Hollywood.

Excellent and informative

This book is an entertaining primer on the motion picture industry. I may very well give it a second listen—it’s that good.

One of the best industry books, poor reader

It really shouldn’t be this hard to find a narrator who can properly pronounce names.

The New Reality is Already Here

<strong>The New Reality is Already Here</strong>

The title of this book is somewhat interesting, since the fight is pretty much over. A number of studios are facing the reality that consumers have choices for entertainment. Art-house films the Academy loves, the public does not. Viewership has fallen dramatically.

Author Ben Fritz has done a great job of reporting on the Sony pictures back and state of several studios facing the difficult fact that public tastes in films at the box office have changed. Films that once dominated the box office, now are watched through other mediums of they are seen at all. A number of films made in the last few years are simply not good and theater going has become more expensive, so many people are more selective of what they see at the multiplex. The author makes a (wrong in many cases) assumption that a majority of people are bemoaning the lack of certain types of films. Hence there is a woe is me, the adult focused films aren't popular as they used to be. Each generation changes, what your parents loved may not be what you love. The public is deciding what they want, no longer studio heads in most cases.

The most popular films are noted in this book as franchise films. I believe the author is missing the point as to why "event" films are ruling the box office. I am old enough to remember a time before Star Wars. When geeks who loved comic book, sci-fi and superhero didn't have the films we wanted to see. Star Wars shocked the industry because it was the type of film millions wanted to see that was not being made. Marvel Studios is another example. Marvel makes good movies. Their showrunner is a fan and makes films for fellow fans. Just throwing up a film with costumes is not going to work, as rival studios have seen. The audience for these films is so large because these films speak to fans. Many studios had (and some still haven't) to learn the power of fandom the hard way. We are passionate about what we love, we share it with friends and family and we are a "force" to be reckoned with. Many of the elitist snobs refuse to recognize that popular films can have great stories that touch people like their beloved art-house films do for their audience. They have film festivals and we have conventions. Outside of the constant bemoaning of the lack of film type that used to be popular, this was a good book. I read this book using immersion reading while listening to the audiobook. Narrator Timothy Pabon's beautiful voice perfectly fit this work. Any doubts as to the power of fandom were dispelled as Avengers End Game broke Fandangos presale ticket record and box office records galore. And we still have Star Wars Rise of Skywalker coming in December. We will be looking forward to the new Disney streaming service that Netflix will need to work hard to compete.

What an achievement! The Best book about Hollywood

What an amazing achievement! I'm a screenwriter and have read quite a few books about Hollywood and film making. But this one is absolutely the best I have ever come across. If you are interested in the history of film making or Hollywood but you can only read one book, this is definitely the one!

Fantastic Book - But Is Anybody Directing?

Really enjoyed this book - well reported and really well written. The sections that deal with the Sony hack and its ramifications read almost like a thriller. However, like other reviewers, I have to say that the narration, with its jaw dropping mispronunciations, was really distracting and took away from the experience. I can definitely understand how a young or unsophisticated narrator may not know (or care to learn) how to pronounce names like Menahem Golan, Warner Bros. (no, it is NOT Warner BROES!), or words like "Bona Fides" or" Wunderkind" or "St. Tropez" or even "Imminent" (!), but you have to wonder whether or not there is an adult in the room paying attention when these things are recorded. Is there no director? Are they in that much of a rush to get through these recordings that no one is willing to stop and make a correction? When you hear Warner Bros. pronounced Warner BROES literally dozens of times throughout the book you can get a little testy. They are asking people to pay for these audiobooks, so maybe a little quality control is not too much to ask for in return.

Pretty interesting about business side of movies

It was good and I'm glad I listened. Made some valid points about franchises dominating and Disney taking such control of the industry. It was clearly published before Han Solo and Dumbo crashed, as the writer spoke of Disney's approach being almost infallible. Not necessarily. I also appreciated learning more about Sandler, Smith, and Sony. Great tidbits here and there. Definitely a must listen for movie buffs. But I have to say, I did find the narrators saying "Warner Bros" instead of "Warner Brothers" annoying. Nor sure why, but it was irksome.

A great read for those who care about movies.

I love reading Box Office figures every weekend. It's because I love movies and box office determines what movies we ultimately see... This book - appropriately - presents the big picture of where cinema is heading as we enter the 2020s. It's a little sad but also full of potential depending of what the audience writ large decides they want to see.

Great book, informative and entertaining

Loved the subject matter and the intimate look behind the curtain of the glamorous world of Hollywood