The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole Laporte

The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole Laporte

Former Variety reporter Nicole LaPorte draws from years of inside-the-filmmakers-studio access to spin a smart, gritty tell-all about a clash of industry titans in The Men Who Would Be King.

DreamWorks--the mega-million-dollar brainchild of Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and David Geffen--heralded a new age of entertainment empires when it launched in 1994, and their competitive strategy was fierce. For avid business readers, among others, seeing David Geffen in action as he seduces investors like Microsoft's Paul Allen and takes on CAA's Michael Ovitz is worth the price of admission. Their creative battles cost them untold billions on the way to the box office, but this is no rags-to-riches story: in fact, as they grow DreamWorks into one of the most influential film brands operating today, these rich men get richer, even as the stakes get higher.

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.