The only art in Hollywood is the art of business.
Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Deep Ring” (ID: deep-echo ), the author Lu Wei.
▪Old Hollywood and New Hollywood modes are not the same;
From inspiration to release, a Hollywood blockbuster is extremely long, complicated and painful;
The economic, social, and political logic of Hollywood.
In the eyes of domestic moviegoers, Hollywood blockbusters have always been synonymous with quality movies, and Oscar has always been a top glory. Even though the current movie like “Where” has created records in the country and won nearly 5 billion box office, we are still delighted that it can enter the Oscars primaries.
At the same time, because of national confidence and cultural self-confidence, we have been asking such questions: Why can’t China shoot Hollywood blockbusters? There are so many investors in China, several generations of well-known directors, and countless good actors. Why can’t we have a second Hollywood?
The answer usually given by practitioners is that “the American film industry is mature enough”, but in fact many people are not sure where it matures, and it is not clear how the mature model of Hollywood is formed today.
What is the nature and the whole picture of Hollywood? Who made the myth of Hollywood?
The book “Making a blockbuster: money, power, and the secrets of Hollywood” by Edward Jay Epstein, an American writer, answers all of the above questions. The book consists of six chapters, a comprehensive and in-depth description of the transformation of the American film industry’s business model over the past 100 years, a film from a “point” to the final production process, and the logic behind the operation of the Hollywood model.