Summary of Ben Fritz's The Big Picture

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 By the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century, Sony Pictures had lost its way. The movie business had fundamentally morphed and derived most of its profits from giving global audiences what they want: branded franchise films. But Sony hadn’t made that transformation.
#2 When Amy Pascal joined Sony Pictures in 1996, the studio was still reeling from the most disastrous acquisition in the history of the movie industry. The Japanese electronics giant Sony Corporation had bought seventy-year-old Columbia Pictures in 1989.
#3 Pascal was a producer’s assistant who rose to become a vice president of production at Fox in 1985. In 1989, she left Fox to take a similar position at Columbia. In 1994, she was running her own mini-studio, Turner Pictures, with the backing of CNN and the TBS mogul Ted Turner.
#4 Amy Pascal, who was president of Columbia Pictures, was widely admired for her passion to make mid-budget, star-driven movies with original ideas. She was also widely admired for rising so high and so fast despite rampant sexism in Hollywood and the media that covered it.

Sujets

• Industrie
• Business
• Economics
• Entertainment
• Industries

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 05 mai 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822500099
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Ben Fritz's The Big Picture
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

By the middle of the second decade of the twenty-first century, Sony Pictures had lost its way. The movie business had fundamentally morphed and derived most of its profits from giving global audiences what they want: branded franchise films. But Sony hadn’t made that transformation.

#2

When Amy Pascal joined Sony Pictures in 1996, the studio was still reeling from the most disastrous acquisition in the history of the movie industry. The Japanese electronics giant Sony Corporation had bought seventy-year-old Columbia Pictures in 1989.

#3

Pascal was a producer’s assistant who rose to become a vice president of production at Fox in 1985. In 1989, she left Fox to take a similar position at Columbia. In 1994, she was running her own mini-studio, Turner Pictures, with the backing of CNN and the TBS mogul Ted Turner.

#4

Amy Pascal, who was president of Columbia Pictures, was widely admired for her passion to make mid-budget, star-driven movies with original ideas. She was also widely admired for rising so high and so fast despite rampant sexism in Hollywood and the media that covered it.

#5

Sony’s US chief, Howard Stringer, and his Japanese bosses were not ready to put Pascal in charge. They were concerned about her business acumen and her habit of overspending on action movies like Charlie's Angels 2 and dramas like Spanglish.

#6

After leaving Hollywood in 1997, Michael Lynton seemed destined to become a CEO. He had no experience making movies, but he was a smart man with a lot of knowledge about the creative process.

#7

Lynton was never really accepted by the Hollywood elite. He didn’t care much for the social scene, and he had other priorities. He was close with the elite, including Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett.

#8

Lynton was CEO of Penguin Books, and head of the book publisher was perfect for him. He largely left the creative work to subordinates and focused on business strategy. He did get involved in crises, however, including an accounting scandal and Penguin’s publication of Satanic Verses in 1999.

#9

Amy Pascal and Laurence Lynton, the new Sony CEOs, seemed to get along fine. They were extremely successful in their first year together, earning $550 million in profits from the film Spider-Man 2.

#10

Between 2002 and 2014, the number of movies released annually by the six major studios peaked at 204 in 2006.

#11

Sony thrived in this environment because Pascal thrived at making movies for all types of people. She was not much at maximizing the value of a branded franchise, but she knew how to develop a script to perfection, make just the right change in the editing room to take a film from good to great, and charm the most talented filmmakers and actors.

#12

The American movie business was never the same after 2009, when DVD sales began to drop rapidly. The economy in developing nations outside of America grew, and moviegoers in those nations began to expect spectacle and stories that made sense to a villager in China.

#13

Visual effects, sequels, and spinoffs are the most profitable genres of movies nowadays. People don’t go to the movies like they used to, and they prefer to know what they’re in for.

#14

Between 2003 and 2009, Sony was ranked number one in the domestic box office every year but two. But between 2010 and 2016, they were in the bottom half of the pack every year. They hadn’t acquired or built many cinematic series that qualified as global franchises.

#15

Sony's highest-grossing movie was the Bond sequel Skyfall, which collected a phenomenal $305 million domestically and $1. 1 billion worldwide. However, the company didn't make any profits at all because it had spent a lot of money on the movie.

#16

Following the release of two expensive bombs, Sony began to cut costs. The number of movies released each year fell from 22 in 2011 to 13 in 2015. Development spending fell from $127 million in 2010 to $71 million in 2015.

#17

As stress at the office grew, so did the amount of emails that executives at Sony were receiving. The Hollywood trade press was speculating about whether Pascal was about to lose her job.

#18

By the 2010s, it was clear that the most successful studios had a lot of franchises in their arsenal, and they used them to release sequels and spinoffs while enjoying the freedom to develop the next hits. Sony did not have any franchises, and they struggled to develop them.

#19

Pascal was the head of Sony Pictures, and she was known to bend others to her will when it came to greenlighting movies. She was also known to overpromise and underdeliver, which often blew up in their faces.

#20

In 2014, several movies were greenlit with optimistic expectations and failed to deliver: the R-rated comedy Sex Tape, the robot film Chappie, and the only summer tentpole, Pixels.

#21

In late 2014, the hackers posted thousands of emails online, many of which were personal and embarrassing. The end of the year was a nightmare for Sony executives, as they were widely criticized for not playing The Interview.

#22

The hack had done severe damage to Pascal’s reputation in Hollywood and around the world, and thus she was unable to perform her job. The partnership between Lynton and Pascal was over.

#23

As they announced Pascal’s departure, the now former partners had a secret: just a few days earlier, Lynton had travele