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George Lucas's Blockbusting: A Decade-by-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies Including Untold Secrets of Their Financial and Cultural Success [Paperback]

Alex Ben Block , Lucy Autrey Wilson
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

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Book Description

January 5, 2010

By meticulously compiling the details of how movies have been made and financed since the medium′s inception, chronicling their performances at the box office, and offering expert commentary about the most important trends of the last one hundred years, the authors of this book have given readers a singularly unique perspective on the film-making industry and a superlative blueprint for future successful filmmaking ventures.

Taking us decade by decade, this book focuses on the revenues, costs, production and distribution of 300 of the most critically and financially successful movies of all time from the business′s origins through 2005. Its numerous essays examine trends in war, noir, bio-drama, biblical, epic, musical, western, disaster, crime, and action adventure films, as well as the advent the summer movie, auteur filmmaking, and the revolutionary advances that have been made in film technology over time. Furthermore, its full complement of charts, graphs and diagrams presenting such things as salary histories, awards and honors, the number of principal photography days required, advertising expenditures, domestic versus overseas profits and more, also include conversions of past movie-making dollars into current dollar values for easy and relevant comparisons.

The ideal resource for filmmakers of every kind, this book evidences that blockbusters have not only been made on relatively low budgets before, but that they have been made time and time again through varying economic climates.

George Lucas′s Blockbusting is indispensible reading for all who love and contribute to the film business.


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Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a fascinating and carefully documented examination of the art and business of American moviemaking and its evolution over time - how our most popular pictures were made and received, how the landscape of film has shifted through the years. An invaluable historical tool." -- Martin Scorsese

About the Author

Alex Ben Block is an internationally known entertainment industry journalist, author, broadcaster, and show business historian. He was Editor of two of Hollywood's top trade publications-The Hollywood Reporter and Television Week, which Block helped successfully re-launch. He was also an Associate Editor of Forbes magazine and a movie critic in Detroit, Miami, and Los Angeles. He oversaw programming for the American Pavilion at Cannes, 2008. Currently Editor-at-Large for The Hollywood Reporter and Show Business Historian for Hollywood Today. Lucy Autrey Wilson began her career with Lucasfilm in 1974, typing the script to the first Star Wars movie on an IBM Selectric typewriter. She then explored areas as diverse as construction, film, special effects, licensing, and merchandising. In the late 1980s, she launched an all-new Star Wars publishing program comprised of more than 1,500 titles, including 63 New York Times bestsellers, before moving on to new challenges in nonfiction publishing. She currently serves as the Director of Publishing for George Lucas Books, a division of JAK Films.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 976 pages
  • Publisher: It Books; 1 edition (January 5, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0061778893
  • ISBN-13: 978-0061778896
  • Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 1.6 x 9.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #153,356 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

These made the book very easy to read. Benjamin Foti  |  6 reviewers made a similar statement
Cyril McLaglen's IMDb credits do not mention "The Informer." H. Bolles  |  3 reviewers made a similar statement
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, Overwhelming Look at the Movies January 9, 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Susan Hayward as Margo Channing in the 1950 hit "All About Eve"? Clint Eastwood as one of the two alien-fighting "Men in Black"? Neither of these castings actually happened, but they almost did. These are just two of the seemingly zillions of fascinating, interesting tidbits found among the pages of this massive, detailed look at 300 "blockbusting" films.

The 300 films profiled were picked by George Lucas. Arranged by decade, from the early silents to present-day (and including potential future trends), the information includes an overall look at each decade -- the trends, the culture, the innovations, the filmmakers -- and then profiles a number of films that have stood the test of time from each period. Charts, graphs and tables supplement the material, offering samplings of studio mogul and stars' salaries, film budgets, celebrities' popularity and more, with financial info presented both in original dollar figures as well as figures adjusted to 2005 levels. Amazing stuff.

Also included are easy-to-understand sidebars, like the section explaining the various "widescreen" formats (CinemaScope vs. VistaVision vs. Cinerama, etc.; something I always found confusing, until now), and interesting profiles on such popular luminaries as Alfred Hitchcock, the Marx Brothers, Walt Disney, and others. A glorious look at movies, movies, and more movies. If you make them, finance them, write them, or simply LOVE them, this 975-page book is a great, almost overwhelming look at some of the greatest movie "blockbusters" of the silver screen. Highly recommended.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Just what he wanted... January 21, 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
My husband saw George Lucas being interviewed about this book on John Stewart and really wanted it. I ordered it for him and he was even more delighted than he thought he would be. It's an easy lay out to dip in and out of, you grab a page and it gives you so much juicy and interesting information about the making of that particular movie. It's great for movie buffs and for those who like to know background stories. It makes a great gift, esp for those hard to buy for men, if he's mildly interested in the background of how movies are made, then get it and they won't be disappointed.
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16 of 22 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Blockbusting Flops January 30, 2010
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I love Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Young Indy TV series and the original Star Wars movies, especially The Empire Strikes Back, and I was excited to hear that George Lucas had written a movie book. It turns out that George only wrote a one page preface, but he did apparently choose the 300 key movies covered.

Unfortunately, Alex Ben Block who edited Blockbusting and wrote most of the text is a godawful writer. At his best, he's straightforward and plain, but his best doesn't happen too often. The snarls he gets himself into sometimes make it difficult to understand what he's trying to tell us, and what he's trying to tell us in the one page alloted to each film is rarely insightful or meaningful, often pointless, and sometimes ridiculous.

In his discussion of Mutiny on the Bounty for instance, he tells us that the studio was nervous about the project because of "the lack of important women's roles"(among other reasons). He then goes on to say that Gable didn't want to do the film, but was talked into it by a producer "who pointed out that he would have the key romantic role." This is ridiculous on its face, as Gable always had the key romantic role by this stage in his career, and of course, the romantic role in Mutiny in the Bounty is, as the studio said, relatively unimportant,in any case. Whatever Gable's reasons for doing the picture, clearly, this nonesense has nothing to do with them.

In a book designed mainly as a reference work, it's disheartening to find careless mistakes such as confusing Robert Montgomery and George Montgomery, identifying the original version of State Fair as a musical in the unattractively designed standard format page under genre, and telling us that when Irving Thalberg died "he left behind many movie projects, including oversight of the highly successful comedy Animal Crackers." That's a very odd way to characterize Thalberg's accomplishments, even if he had supervised Animal Crackers, but of course he didn't. One assumes Block meant A Night at the Opera.

Going back to Mutiny on the Bounty, Block makes a point of saying that it was the first remake to win a best picture Oscar, citing In the Wake of the Bounty, released in 1933 as the original. This is a very questionable distortion, especially since Blockbusting is almost wholly concerned with American movies, and In the Wake of the Bounty was a little seen, barely professional Australian picture.

A final disappointment is the system used to calculate adjusted box office and production figures for the films. This is an area in which Blockbusting could have been really useful, but I can't understand the comments in the Notes to the Reader section which tell me that the difference between ticket prices and the Consumer Price Index result in Little Women's production adjustment being 1 million = 15 million in 2005 dollars, while the box ofiice revenue for the same film tells me that 5.1 million = 142.4 million in the same 2005 dollars. Aren't dollars, dollars in this book? I'd love to know how many people actually saw the chosen films based on ticket prices divided into total box office revenue, but since no effort is made to do this, I'm confused about the saliency of ticket prices to the adjusted revenue calculations.

In sum, this book is absolutely awful.The information is skimpy, frequently irrelevant, and generally untrustworthy. The writing is sophomore college level, and I'm insulting many fine sophomore writers when I say that.

What a disappointment!

Lansing Sexton
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars Book
I made this purchase for someone else. I do believe she was pleased with what she ordered and so was the person she gave it to.
Published 3 months ago by Jan Baker
5.0 out of 5 stars George Lucas's Blockbusting
It has his best 300 movies. The book was in good shape and arrived promptly. I would highly recommend the book to any George Lucas fan. Read more
Published 21 months ago by C. Spavin
4.0 out of 5 stars Blockbusting (it books)
Film students take note. As George Lucas says in his introductory notes, that his new book, "Blockbusting," (it books) is the kind of book he wishes he had when he was in film... Read more
Published on January 27, 2011 by BlogOnBooks
4.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
This is very informative and a great resource to have on the history of filmmaking inside of Hollywood.
Published on July 24, 2010 by Diana Lesmez
2.0 out of 5 stars Written by accountants
This phone book sized book promised : untold secrets of the cultural and financial success of blockbusters. Blockbusting , what does it mean? To create blockbusters? Nope. Read more
Published on July 10, 2010 by Larry
5.0 out of 5 stars Extermely analytical and fascinating, but could use some more...
I got this book shortly after it came out, and I gotta say, I'm very impressed with it. It's every film lovers dream come true. Read more
Published on July 3, 2010 by Benjamin Foti
5.0 out of 5 stars George's name is on the front cover, but not sure what he did to...
While George Lucas may not have actually written any of this book past the introduction, I imagine it may have been his idea at some point. Read more
Published on June 2, 2010 by G. Fredericks
5.0 out of 5 stars I wish i had this book at USC Film School
A seminal text of the film industry that at once captures everything one would want to know on the history of motion pictures, the film business and the technical side of... Read more
Published on May 15, 2010 by Don Scioli
4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of reading...
Very detailed book, also very big book. Much to mull over. Haven't finished it yet. Recommended if you are a HUGE movie fan that likes to know back stories, etc. Read more
Published on April 22, 2010 by J. Pick
3.0 out of 5 stars Sourcebook For The Film Industry
This remarkable reference is just what students of the film industry have always needed. Published under the imprint of George Lucas Books, it is a compilation of 300 films that... Read more
Published on March 11, 2010 by O Shepard
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