Open Wide: How Hollywood Box Office Became a National Obsession - Softcover

Bing, Jonathan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 140135985X ISBN 13: 9781401359850

Publisher: Miramax Books, 2006

Synopsis

A journey inside the cutthroat competition surrounding big-budget film looks at the summer's biggest blockbuster weekend to reveal how movies have become the products of instantaneous mass consumption and to explore the multi-million-dollar battle over box-office revenue. Reprint. 20,000 first printing.

About this title

Synopsis:

Veteran Hollywood journalists Dade Hayes and Jonathan Bing brilliantly illuminate the quest for box office supremacy in "Open Wide". Chronicling the nerve-wracking months leading to that summer showdown, following every key decision that took these movies into the nation's multiplexes, they watch as focus groups of suburban teenage girls critique movie trailers and advertising campaigns. They are in Cannes when "Terminator 3" robots are unleashed and in London for "Legally Blonde 2's" lavish and chaotic press junket. A mammoth convention in Las Vegas finds celebrities and studio executives mingling awkwardly with small-town theater owners and vendors hawking high-concept snacks for adventurous concession stands. The films are screened, tested, and frantically re-cut. Publicity stunts are engineered and theater exhibition chains are booked. "Open Wide" shines a bright light on the secretive inner workings of Hollywood's vast sales and marketing machine, past and present.

As the authors explore how and why box office receipts have evolved from a closely guarded corporate secret to a national obsession, they bring acute insight to an industry that is increasingly devoted to producing the next big blockbuster.

About the Author:

Jonathan Bing is deputy managing editor at Variety.

About this edition

• Publisher: Miramax Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 140135985X
• ISBN 13: 9781401359850
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 448