You're Only as Good as Your Next One

100 Great Films, 100 Good Films, and 100 for Which I Should Be Shot

By: Mike Medavoy, Josh Young (As told to)

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Paperback | 7 January 2003 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

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416 Pages

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21.59 x 13.97 x 2.54

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“An under-read and engaging show-biz memoir.” –The New Yorker

"If I had a talent for anything, it was a talent for knowing who was talented."
Mike Medavoy is a Hollywood rarity: a studio executive who, though never far from controversy, has remained well loved and respected through four decades of moviemaking. What further sets him apart is his role in bringing to the screen some of the most acclaimed Oscar-winning films of our time: Apocalypse Now, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, and Sleepless in Seattle are just some of the projects he green-lighted at United Artists, Orion, TriStar, his own Phoenix Pictures.
"The ultimate lose-lose situation for a studio executive: to wind up with a commercial bomb and a bad movie."
Of course, there are the box office disasters, and the films, as Medavoy says, "for which I should be shot." They, too, have a place in his fascinating memoir -- a pull-no-punches account of financial and political maneuvering, and of working with the industry's brightest star power, including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Sharon Stone, Michael Douglas, Meg Ryan, and countless others.
"Putting together the elements of a film is a succession of best guesses."
Medavoy speaks out on how movie studio buyouts have stymied the creative process and brought an end to the "hands-off" golden age of filmmaking. An eyewitness to Hollywood history in the making, he gives a powerful and poignant view of the past and future of a world he knows intimately.

Industry Reviews

Praise for Mike Medavoy and You're Only As Good As Your Next One:

“An under-read and engaging show-biz memoir.”

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Introduction: Movies Are Everybody's Second Business	p. xi
Making Sausage	p. 1
The Lunatics in the Asylum	p. 21
The Madman in the Jungle	p. 53
Gypsies, Tramps, and Auteurs	p. 67
When Accountants Run Studios ...	p. 83
You Can't Shoot the Deal	p. 94
Movie by Committee	p. 109
Trade Ads and Champagne	p. 125
Finding the Beef	p. 143
Orion's Constellation	p. 151
Hollywood's Medicis	p. 187
All the Money in the World	p. 208
Captain Hook and Bugsy Siegel Take Over My Life	p. 224
The Fish Stinks at the Head	p. 246
Hollywood, D.C.	p. 269
Breaking Bread with Them What Wronged You	p. 274
A Phoenix Rises	p. 291
The Thin Red Line	p. 312
Surviving in a Bloodbath	p. 329
Epilogue: The Seventh Act Break	p. 347
Acknowledgments	p. 357
Index	p. 359
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

You're Only as Good as Your Next One

100 Great Films, 100 Good Films, and 100 for Which I Should Be Shot

At a Glance

Paperback

Industry Reviews

Shipping

How to return your order

Defective items

You Can Find This Book In

Other Editions and Formats

ePUB

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