Men Who Would be King by Nicole Laporte
For sixty years, through Oscars and earthquakes, the lineup of Hollywood s majors varied little, with Universal, Warner Bros., Fox, and Paramount heading the list. Then came the circus maximus created by director Steven Spielberg, billionaire David Geffen, and Jeffrey Katzenberg (who gave us The Lion King). Nothing in decades had approached the excitement surrounding the empire called DreamWorks, where hype, glory, and investors vying to kick in billions gave way to blowups, battles, and betrayals worthy of The Godfather.Nicole LaPorte reveals for the first time the delicious truth of what happened behind the scenes. From a previously unequaled vantage, we see the slightly otherworldly Spielberg, so rich and famous that the borders of reality, much less his admiring new partners, can barely contain him. As Steven spends, offers lucrative contracts to friends, and makes blockbusters for other companies, Katzenberg attempts to create an animation kingdom that will become the new company s cash cow and annihilate his old rivals at Disney. (His shock comes when the one movie he does not micromanage the tale of a green ogre called Shrek becomes a four-billion-dollar franchise while his own projects tank one by one.) After he s charmed investors (including Microsoft s Paul Allen), Geffen hovers above the fray in his Gulfstream IV, occasionally jetting in to zap enemies who violate his rules of business, a code less flexible than omerta.[add accent grave to a]
There are clashes between Spielberg s blue-jeaned troops and Katzenberg s steely, Disney-trained warriors, and the seduction of stars such as George Clooney and Nicole Kidman (who can t believe the mess made of DreamWorks first movie, The Peacemaker). LaPorte shows us the making of Oscar-winning triumphs, including Saving Private Ryan, American Beauty, and Gladiator, a box-office crowd pleaser whose star, Russell Crowe, threatened homicide in bizarre late-night phone tirades. Behind the high jinks, however, is the very serious business of producing films, among America s biggest exports. Yet we watch as the partners alternately obsess and ignore their company as it burns through billions. We see Geffen showing his mettle against superagent Michael Ovitz, and staging a fireworks display during the negotiations that ultimately took DreamWorks to Paramount and then to Disney.
Here are three larger-than-life personalities, moguls that hark back to the days of Mayer and Goldwyn, making moves that remind us that in Hollywood, big business calls for memorable performances.
Laporte, Nicole: -
Nicole LaPorte is the author of Guilty Admissions and The Men Who Would Be King: Movies, Moguls, and a Company Called Dreamworks. She is a Los Angeles based senior writer for Fast Company. She previously was a columnist for the New York Times and a staff writer for Newsweek, the Daily Beast, and Variety. She also wrote the Rules of Hollywood column for the Los Angeles Times Magazine.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780547134703 |
| ISBN 10 | 0547134703 |
| Title | Men Who Would be King |
| Author | Nicole Laporte |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin |
| Year published | 2010-05-04 |
| Number of pages | 448 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |