Blockbuster : How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer

The unmistakable opening bars of John Williams' score for JAWS heralded not just the arrival of a man-eating shark, but the appearance of a new type of movie. Fast, visceral, and devouring all in its path, the summer blockbuster had arrived. But having brought audiences back to theatres in record numbers, the beast then took on a life of its own, and by the 1990s had run completely out of control. Are the studios even in the movie business any more? Or are they just in the blockbuster business? Written with a passion of a true movie fan, and the wit of one of our best critics, Tom Shone's book is the first to try to make sense of this global phenomenon. He has interviewed all the key participants -- from directors like Spielberg and Lucas to the executives who greenlight these behemoths, down to the effects boffins who detonated the Death Star and blew up the White House -- and produced what is easily the most incisive and entertaining book about film since Peter Biskind's EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS.

'In England, writers are never nice about their friends' books: I read out a terrific sentence from Blockbuster with the express purpose of making a mutual friend groan with horrified envy, and it worked a treat. With heavy heart, then, I must tell you that Blockbuster is compelling, witty, authoritative, and very, very smart ... This may be a strange thing to say about a book that embraces the evil Hollywood empire so warmly, but Blockbuster is weirdly humane: it prizes entertainment over boredom, and audiences over critics, and yet it's a work of great critical intelligence.'
Nick Hornby, The Believer
‘A witty counterblast to Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Tom Shone’s Blockbuster looks at event movies from Jaws to The Lord of the Rings, takes them seriously, listens to their makers and decisively challenges the idea that the rot set in with Star Wars. Shone writes as an enthusiast as well as a critic, and he sees reflected in blockbusters the history of Hollywood in the last thirty years. For once, this is not about “rise and fall” or “artists against the system” but about the realities of the film business.’
Sir Christopher Frayling
'Groundbreaking'
DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Enthralling'
DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘The Best film book of the year’
Daily Telegraph 25/09
'It's extremely refreshing to find a critic willing to stake out such unfashionable ground . . . the enriched throughout by interviews with all the principal players. God knows how, but he managed to persuade Spielburg and others to talk to him for days on end about their films . . . Startlingly original . . . Like all good critics, Shone helps his cause immeasurably by being a gifted writer. His ability to sum up an actor or director in one well-turned phrase is reminiscent of Pauline Kael's . . . As far as I know, no other critic has written a book about blockbusters as a genre, and it's hard to imagine anyone as intelligent and well-educated as Shone ever doing so again. This means he finds himself in the enviable position of having written both the first and the last word on the subject. For anyone interested in film, this book is a must read.'
SPECTATOR
'[Tom Shone's] study of blockbusters is a spirited and intelligent account of their emergence during the 1970s . . . energy and wit'
NEW STATESMAN
‘[Shone] writes brilliantly about Ridley Scott and James Cameron, and the chapter on Batman is a piercing insight into the moneyed madness of modern-film making’
GUARDIAN
‘Shone’s sinewy critical perceptions are on coruscating form in this fast-moving account of Hollywood’s last 30 years
Sunday Times 24/10
'In this definitive guide to film-making, Shone analyses both the movies and the men behind them . . . Featuring revealing, often amusing, interviews and anecdotes, this is an incisive study of the movie-making machine and unmissable reading for cinema buffs'
DAILY RECORD
'Impressive . . . persuasive' Nicholas Blincoe, DAILY TELEGRAPH
'Snappy' SCOTSMAN
'Exhilarating . . . Shone is knowing and a quizzical observer . . . With wit, style and a good deal of cheeky scorn for the opinions of bien-passant liberal intellectuals, Shone argues that the coming of the big movies . . . did not kill of Hollywood' Philip French, TLS
'Tom Shone has long been a hero of mine, but my admiration has always been tinged with jealousy. When he worked as film critic for the Sunday Times he was capable of making the bleakest review sing. His book Blockbuster addresses that era of cinema when the 1970s film-school brats took hold of the Hollywood business and made it their own. He doesn't just interview directors like Spielberg and Luca. He brings the whole wheeling and dealing business to office life: the swearing, the stakes, and the egos. It's like Hello! Magazine gone mad, only more fun. The wrenching interest is the attention to detail: the conversations, the humiliations, the box-office figures. Like a true film nut, he relays these anecdotes as much larger than life. The result is pure, unadulterated satire' James Christopher, THE TIMES
'Entertaining' EVENING STANDARD
‘Now and again Shone’s super-smart style wore me down, but then, I’d been weakened by laughing so much at his wit; his descriptions of summer movies of the past 30 years, their invention and manufacture, are often more entertaining than the actual pictures ever were. He’s bought of a new style of criticism that applies intelligence to the whole equation, to the interaction of industry, movie, audience and geopolitical event . . . and his jokes! Please tell me he’s doing the rewrite of the last Indiana Jones sequel. It’ll need him'
GUARDIAN
'Gripping and full of good anecdotes' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
‘Brilliantly argued . . . Shone is a superb guide to what really goes on behind the movie cameras. Witty, cogent and effortlessly well written, this is an essential read for anyone interested in the world of film’
Simon Shaw, MAIL ON SUNDAY
'Passionate, witty and hugely entertaining . . . [Shone] offers a brilliant, incisive account'
INDEPENDENT
‘This fast-moving account of American cinema since Jaws argues that blockbusters are what Hollywood does best’
THE TIMES, Top 100 Holiday Reads
'A smart, snappy history and a fierce rebuke to sniffy critics'
EVENING STANDARD
'Bracingly combative . . . Shone juggles thrilling polemic and eye-opening critical analysis with number-crunching and behind-the-scenes reporting (most of the big names are interviewed) his prose is as vibrant as his subject matter.’
Word Magazine
‘Structured around a series of interviews with Hollywood bigshots, Tom Shone’s BLOCKBUSTER is a definitive history of mainstream cinema since 1975 ... Shone is a former Sunday Times film critic and his range of reference is wide. The research is comprehensive, the argument persuasive and the burnished prose brims with lively, iconoclastic insights. This isn’t just for film buffs, but for anyone who has ever set foot in a multiplex.’
Daily Telegraph 23/7
‘Shone deftly exposes the all-shout, no-clout vapidity of these films in a perfect balance of humour, admiration and shrewd critical scrutiny’
SUNDAY TIMES