'THE BIG PICTURE - THE FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE OF MOVIES'.......HOW CHINA AND SUPERHEROES UPENDED HOLLYWOOD.....

 The Big Picture - The Fight For The Future Of Movies by Ben Fritz (2018)

             Though this book's already 2 years old (the same time it took us to get around to it), it's still as immediate and relevant as ever.......

               The only real update missing is the further upheaval and decimation of the theater chains from  Covid-19.

               To create this incisive, fascinating look into the mechanics of the current film business, author Fritz performed a task equivalent to Hercules cleaning the Augean stables......

              He plowed through thousands upon thousands of Sony corporate e-mails hacked by North Korean cyber-bandits, as revenge for the studio's release of "The Interview". You know, the movie the dared to lampoon their Dear Leader and Trump BFF,, Kim Jung Loony-Tune.

               Fritz didn't go dumpster diving into Sony's dirty laundry just to hunt down mere juicy gossip. True to his book's title, he organized this pile of company in-fighting, Machiavellian maneuvering, and financial angst into......a big picture.

                ........a big picture of how comic book superhero movies and the Chinese audiences who gobble them up like hot crisp eggrolls became the engines that drive all the major Hollywood studios......as well as the multiplexes that take up almost all their screens showing them. 

             For any film buff who treasures low to mid-budget dramas, films that rely on creativity, imagination and skilled writing, directing and acting, what unfolds here can sound nightmarish. 

              Those kind of films have been all but ejected out of theaters, to make room for the IMAX brigade of Marvel and D.C.Comics spandexers......and whose primary box office dollars flow out of the exploding China market, hungry for big, dopey special effects heavy spectacles.

               Much of the book centers around the travails and tribulations of  former Sony production chief Amy Pascal.  Unlike the other studio chiefs, she championed mid-budget dramas and comedies with her powerhouse stars, Will Smith and Adam Sandler.

                 But Smith and Sandler ran out of box-office gas eventually and Pascal's woeful attempt to reboot her studio's one big comic book franchise "Spiderman'  proved her undoing........(just try sitting through either of those ghastly 'Amazing Spiderman' movies with Andrew Garfield)

                There's even more incredible stuff to uncover here, including some producer-writers setting up their own creative 'campuses' for the sole purpose of trying to inject fresh new ideas into all the superhero comic book franchises before audience get sick and tired of them.

               But don't despair, cinema lovers. This story offers some light at the end of the tunnel, with the arrival of the major players Amazon, Netflix and all the subsequent streaming services who need constant content even more than we Covid- quarantined folk need toilet paper.,

             The streamers need tons of content to throw at you........and that means the drama-driven, lower budget, independent films will still thrive and multiply.......but you'll have get used to watching them on your TVs, tablets, laptops or phones.......and not the multiplex, now the permanent resting place for the Marvel and DC CGI circuses.

               For anyone who follows the up and down upheavals of the movie business, 'The Big Picture' should to the top of your TBR list.....4 stars (****).