You're Only as Good as Your Next One

Name any one of the most highly regarded films of the last four decades and chances are that it's got producer Mike Medavoy's prints somewhere on it: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; Amadeus; The Silence of the Lambs; Apocalypse Now; Philadelphia; Rocky, the list is endless. Born in Shanghai and raised in Chile, Medavoy has taken the hard road to the highest echelons of Hollywood power, rising from the mailroom, never losing sight of his convictions, and staying true to the art of making movies. YOU'RE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR NEXT ONE explores in detail what Medavoy calls 'a terrifying business for the faint of heart.' He traces how the making and marketing of movies has changed now that the Hollywood studios have become divisions of large corporations. Recalling his many successes (and claiming just as many failures), Medavoy takes the reader into the eye of Hollywood's biggest storms: the madness on the set of Apocalypse Now; the political fallout of Mississippi Burning and The People vs. Larry Flynt; and the Woody Allen scandal that rocked Husbands and Wives, plus close encounters with colleagues like Robert Redford, Kevin Costner, Dustin Hoffman, and Steven Spielberg. It's a look at the last forty years in a business that is everybody's second business.