You're Only as Good as Your Next One: 100 Great Films, 100 Good Films, and 100 for Which I Should Be Shot

by Mike Medavoy

“An under-read and engaging show-biz memoir.” –The New Yorker"If I had a talent for anything, it was a talent for knowing who was talented." Mike Medavoy is a Hollywood a studio executive who, though never far from controversy, has remained well loved and respected through four decades of moviemaking. What further sets him apart is his role in bringing to the screen some of the most acclaimed Oscar-winning films of our Apocalypse Now, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Amadeus, The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, and Sleepless in Seattle are just some of the projects he green-lighted at United Artists, Orion, TriStar, his own Phoenix Pictures. "The ultimate lose-lose situation for a studio to wind up with a commercial bomb and a bad movie." Of course, there are the box office disasters, and the films, as Medavoy says, "for which I should be shot." They, too, have a place in his fascinating memoir -- a pull-no-punches account of financial and political maneuvering, and of working with the industry's brightest star power, including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Sharon Stone, Michael Douglas, Meg Ryan, and countless others. "Putting together the elements of a film is a succession of best guesses." Medavoy speaks out on how movie studio buyouts have stymied the creative process and brought an end to the "hands-off" golden age of filmmaking. An eyewitness to Hollywood history in the making, he gives a powerful and poignant view of the past and future of a world he knows intimately.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Biography, Media Tie In, Audiobook, Memoir, Biography Memoir

436 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 29, 2002

Reviews

[Forthbridge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Until this year I never gave any consideration as to the mechanics of how a film was made, but now I am being drawn into a nerdy neo obsession. This book gives a fascinating insight into the roles of various key players who need to collaborate to get an idea from a legal pad out into the world. The book has a lovely conversational style and the author puts his hands up to some errors along the way. This is a welcome contrast to the 'I triumphed in 2015 and did even better fore the next five years..' stuff.
The 'maths meets art' side intrigues me. Do you go for a low-budget movie ( like the $17 million Home Alone ) with no mega stars or play it safe and pair up Daniel Craig with Scarlett Johansson and hope there is some change out of $200 million to make the film? Mike Medavoy lists the risks and rewards - both in financial and human terms. It is a shame his friendship with Robert Redford was blown away - but it is one of many interesting anecdotes.

[Liquidlasagna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably one of the best books on Hollywood of the Modern Era from the view of a studio executive. Medavoy was one of the most youthful members on one of the great filmmaking teams at United Artists, who actually cared about good films.

Pleskow-Krim-Benjamin-Bernstein-Medavoy was an interesting executive team who worked together for sixteen years at United Artists and then Orion Pictures.

Mike was a part of the careers of Fonda, Redford and Sutherland, and because of him you had One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Apocalypse Now.

From this book i fully understood Marlon Brando who said:

'he has never faltered, he is a truly decent person'

'i cannot think of anyone who could have more faithfully chronicles the history of the movie business'

---

I've always wanted to create a chronological list of every film Medavoy had his hands on, and then apply the IMDB/Blockbuster/Martin-Porter ratings to them, because one unusual thing i've noticed was that with most every film that Medavoy was critical of, that wasn't a hit, actually had a minority of people who felt the film was actually 'pretty decent'. Every film that Medavoy felt was a failure, in my mind was more a failure of being hugely popular, almost never a 'terrible film'.

I've got nothing but the highest admiration for the author, who used his intuition and his conscience to do the best he could, with all the risks, making actors and actresses and directors happy, trying to make good and interesting films, and trying to make popular films that didn't lose money. He admitted his moments of arrogance and insecurity, in a dynamic world of egos and artists, and grave risks, and tried his best to make the artists, companies and himself, reasonably happy trying to step on as few toes as possible.

Now if i could only get Stroheim, Orson Welles, Michelangelo Antonioni, Stanley Kramer, Walter Mirisch, Jack.C. Ellis, Peter Bodganovich, and Mike Medavoy, in a room together to debate.

[Gareth · Rating 4 out of 5]

You may not know his name, but Mike Medavoy has had a hand in many popular and interesting movies. Not being a “name” film producer is part of who he is, and his book You’re Only As Good As Your Next One celebrates his brand of movie producing, prioritising talent over packaging deals.

It ends up providing a fascinating view from the boardrooms and trenches of Hollywood in the last decades of the 20th century, tracing various trends in moviemaking (such as the director-led 70s, the high concept 80s, the broader 90s) as he traces his own somewhat wandering career path. Medavoy appears to be a rare nice guy in Hollywood, which to be honest sabotages him more often than it helps: many stories start with him trusting somebody to think the way he does, and end with him getting frozen out of a movie and its success, or losing a job. On two occasions he’s tried working with a smaller, talent-led studio. The second attempt, Phoenix Pictures, is still just about hanging in there.

Medavoy (with Josh Young) has a smart, but very frank and readable style. He’s honest about his mistakes (hence the book’s cheeky subtitle) and passionate about his endeavours. Although he’s also frank about people he’s less keen on and the choices they’ve made, he’s never vindictive about it. He has a great understanding of what’s happening in the film world - albeit, sometimes he has unrewarding instincts. His dislike of teenage moviegoers feels a little harsh, but then his assessment of where movie production and distribution is heading - and this written 20 years ago - is almost dead on. I wonder what he thinks, based on his optimism for the creative boom around digital filmmaking, about the current Disney and general franchise monopoly on Hollywood.

Bottom line, this feels like an essential read for people curious about film production and, to a smaller extent, the stories behind the movies.

Actual rating: 4.5.

[Mrs. Read · Rating 1 out of 5]

Although I don’t watch movies I love "behind-the-movie-making-scenes" type books, and therefore really expected to enjoy Medavoy’s, so I was disappointed to find out that it was a) way more about Medavoy than movies, and b) some of the worst, most pedestrian writing I’ve deliberately exposed myself to in months. Not for me ...

[A Cesspool · Rating 2 out of 5]

Culturally vapid, creatively conservative
luddite-mogul’s autobio.

Orion Pictures was the definitive mini-major Hollywood studio between early-1980s and 1990s; Unfortunately Medavoy's memoir only commemorates deals, financing & marketing from his time with the studio.
Don’t expect any of the insightful behind-the-scenes chronologies in Sherry Lansing’s exceptional Leading Lady , or wiki-worthy making-of anecdotals, à la Peter Bart’s exploitive Fade Out . Likewise, Medavoy’s career memoir is far from film appreciation; primarily pantomiming bureaucratic affirmations with — motivational poster(s) pull-quotes sprinkled in — dollops of self-serving Hollywood gossip.

Medavoy’s principle thesis is:

'This is what I should've said to (them)...!'

Revisionist ideals repeatedly precedes highly-polished dilettante’s perspective (of near-truths, hearsay, and half-remembered dreams [srsly! see Pp. 295]).


There’s also an undercurrent of self-righteousness through Medavoy’s narrative...
• Whether he’s glibly chiding Francis Ford Coppola's extramarital affair while on-location Apocalypse Now, or
• Slandering chemically-depended Nick Nolte for publicly exhibiting a degenerate's posture; almost 15 years after producing Farewell to the King (1989), or
• Lampooning Madonna’s lifestyle/sexual predilections while — also casually disparaging his feme VP of Production — auditioning Desperately Seeking Susan...
Medavoy repeatedly ends up artlessly alluding to his own staunchly conservative morals, imo.

A more meticulous overview of his studio regime betrays his real dynasty. Specifically, the harsh contrast between...
• those film properties Medavoy, or his lieutenants, actually oversaw (from initial concept through to distribution/marketing)

  versus

• those acquired through outside vendors &, primarily, co-productions (with outfits like Carolco, Hemdale Pictures and StudioCanal).

fyi: A forensic accounting of Orion's filmography during Medavoy's administration attributes those sporadic hits his office was genuinely responsible with producing, acquired in turnaround [e.g. all of the heavy-lifting/creative development facilitated elsewhere, at another studio]. Moreover, Medavoy saddled his studio with a lot of duds he'd personally campaigned for their acquisition [out of turnaround] that ultimately vindicated predecessor studio's doubts [reasons for putting them up for-sale].

If, like me, you’re picking this up bc Medavoy appeared to facilitate one of Hollywood’s best, or most consistent, filmographies (between 1978-1990), consider this your hard-pass forewarning.
At the very least, maybe consider Medavoy-counterpart Bernie Brillstein's more candid, far less sanctimonious Hollywood legacy re-imaging memoir; or even James B. Stewart's exhaustive DisneyWar instead?

Mike Medavoy's commemorative making-of / B-T-S anecdotals…

  First Blood (1982)

...aka Orion Pictures ver. 2.0 debut property.

“…we bought the domestic rights for $8 million— for independent producers Mario Kassar and Andy Vajna, and co-produced with their company, Carolco — a lot of money if you have access to only $50 million....”

[fyi: Orion’s then-line of credit, $50M, came courtesy Warner Bros.]

“Even if we could have afforded to buy the sequel and character rights, by the time we reached that point, Mario Kassar and Andy Vajna wouldn’t have sold them to us. They were upset that we didn’t spend enough money on advertising in the United States and Canada. They felt a bigger marketing push would’ve resulted in a bigger hit, and they were probably right. I didn’t know it at the time, but skimping on marketing would become the norm at Orion.”

The Terminator (1984):

“Jim Cameron and Gale began dating during post-production and ended up marrying, and it was just as turbulent for Orion and ultimately for me, too.”

“Cameron & Gale felt that Orion had no intention of supporting their film”

[[ note : Medavoy convinced Orion executives — Terminator was just a fluke exploitation/Roger Corman-knockoff — their other acquisition, Amadeus (1984), would clean up at the Academy Awards if they extended its theatrical exhibition. 20 years later, Medavoy now swaggers The Terminator a professional triumph. However, Team Cameron says otherwise… ]]

GALE ANNE HURD (producer/co-screenwriter): They had such little faith in the movie that they didn’t want to screen it for critics. The head of marketing almost said as much. And if you were Orion and you had Amadeus, which they had released five weeks before, and which did go on to win Best Picture, well, I can imagine them saying, “Amadeus, The Terminator — which one doesn’t fit?” I can’t blame them now, but at the time I was devastated when they didn’t like it.

JAMES CAMERON: Mike Medavoy was very negative. He was pretty much the opposite of a helpful, supportive executive. He never understood the film. But after the movie came out, he was falling all over himself taking credit for it.

BARBARA BOYLE (Orion’s executive VP of production/Orion's greatest asset, imho): I’ve spoken to other executives at other studios who told me, even though it was quite successful, that it would’ve easily broken $100 million if they had properly advertised it.

[...and my favorite making-of pullquote, redacted from Medavoy's memoir…]

CAMERON: I was on a panel with Medavoy years later. And he’s talking about how he supported young filmmakers and nurtured them. And he points down to me and says, “Like Jim Cameron on The Terminator.” And I laughed and said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, let me set the record straight. He didn’t help me at all.” And Mike laughed, and he thought I was kidding. I was deadly serious. (emphasis mine)

Medavoy's commemorative B-T-S / making-of The Terminator [cont]...

“Orion CEO Eric Pleskow was lukewarm about putting much money into marketing. The marketing department was basically allotted enough money for a first-weekend push and then it would be wait and see. Even when the film did $5 million over the opening weekend, Eric still didn’t want to increase spending. He reasoned that we didn’t have to because the film had found an audience and word of mouth would take over. Distraught, Gale and Jim appealed to John Daly at Hemdale and he, in turn, went to his investors for additional money to pay for second-week television ads.

Given the quality of the film, its final number of $38 million was about a quarter of its potential. For that film today, twice $38 million would be the opening weekend.”

��To celebrate The Terminator’s success, the four of us went to lunch at La Cote Basque. When Gale and Jim tried to order a bottle of vintage champagne, I protested that it was too expensive. Gale then mentioned that it would be nice if Orion took out a congratulatory ad in the trades applauding the box-office numbers. At the time, Gale was trying to get Fox to commit to Jim as the director of Aliens (1986), and she felt that anything that contributed to the perception that The Terminator was a hit would only help her cause with Fox. I rejected the idea, saying that the film should speak for itself”

“Contractually, they had to offer the Terminator sequel to Orion, but I convinced Orion owners Arthur Krim and Eric Pleskow we should pass. There was no way Kassar and Vajna were going to work with Orion on the film unless they had to because they still harbored a grudge against us for not spending enough to market the first Rambo film.”

“Cameron told the 2,000 people in attendance how I had insisted Barbara Streisand O. J. Simpson play the Terminator and that he had fought to get Arnold cast. Unfortunately that did come out of my mouth. At the time, O.J. Simpson had one of those commercials for Hertz where he jumped over a counter and ran to get a rental car. It was all of that athletic stuff, which I thought the Terminator should have.”
“Feeling hurt by Cameron’s speech led me to write a letter to Arnold to set the record straight. In the letter, I wrote that I expected Jim Cameron to say something like that because he can’t be happy unless he is in a fight with someone. I wanted Arnold to know the facts as I remembered them. Arnold had become close friends with Cameron from the two Terminator films and True Lies, which they made together. When Arnold read the letter, he was upset with me, and both he and his wife, Maria Shriver, called me to express their sentiments. Arnold said I should just move on. I disagreed with him, but I told him I would drop the matter”

[fyi: Medavoy's reportedly go-to talent-crutch throughout late-1970s-early-80s was Barbara Streisand; He was notorious for optioning scripts, insisting, '...this would be perfect for Barbara.' Later, it would be Charlie Sheen, only to quickly segue, and settle, on Kevin Costner (after the Heidi Fleiss drugs-prostitution-tax evasion scandal)].

re: Orion's VP of Production: Barbar Boyle...

“Bob Sherman had left at the end of 1981 to slow down the pace of his life, so I needed a new head of production. For this critical job, I hired Barbara Boyle (1982-86), who traveled in entirely different social and business circles than I.”

Barbara lived up the street from me, and she had become one of the regulars at social events at my house. After leaving her law practice, she went to work for Roger Corman. Barbara brought Francis Doel (also, 1982-86) with her from Corman to work as story editor, and together they began to focus on the kind of emerging talent that Orion needed to remain vital.

More than once, this Cormanesque sensibility made my partners in New York question our sanity in the L.A. office (see above: Team Cameron). Ultimately, it led to our replacing her with two young executives, Rob Fried and Jon Sheinberg.”

No Way Out (1987):

“I arranged for lunch to be brought in to my office for Kevin, Production Chief Barbara Boyle, and me. Kevin showed up in jeans, cowboy boots, and a mellow attitude that made him instantly likeable. He had the charm and good looks of a modern-day Gary Cooper. As we were talking and getting to know each other, I ran down the list of films that Orion was making for which Kevin might have been right. I asked him what he wanted to do. His answer was a project called “Finished With Engines.”
Barbara started to tell him that we read it and weren’t planning to make the film, when I interrupted. “That’s a perfect role for you,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

Bull Durham (1988):

“On occasion Eric Pleskow helped pull me out of the Hollywood rut and see the merits of projects that I previously nixed. I was afraid of doing a baseball movie, because they rarely do well overseas. But Eric liked Bull Durham and gave his okay.”
“None of us at Orion thought that Tim was right for the part. As written, the role called for someone funny, and there was nothing overtly funny in Tim. In fact, there wasn’t much on his résumé at all. But when he met with Ron and Kevin, they saw something special in him. In the finished film, one of the funniest scenes is when Susan tries to arouse Tim by reading poetry, while he lies in bed, supine and slack-jawed, wondering if he is going to have sex with her or not”

( Cross-check with director Ron Shelton’s The Church of Baseball: The Making of Bull Durham)

“Orion didn’t like Tim’s performance. Rob Fried, the Orion executive assigned to us, back in L.A., was still pushing for Anthony Michael Hall, and he wouldn’t let go. There was a wave of anti–Tim Robbins sentiment in the hallways of Orion. My first response was that I could get Kevin and Susan behind me—the studio wouldn’t dare touch Tim if they thought Kevin and Susan would rebel. Then I got even angrier, and pulled an Earl Weaver, said they should fire me first. “They’re thinking about it” was the answer. This was chilling.
Orion also felt that Susan didn’t look good and that the disparity between her and Tim’s ages would preclude Annie’s ever going to bed with Nuke”

  ”Why I passed on Pulp Fiction for Sommersby (1993) . . .”

"The deal I had made with Danny DeVito’s Jersey Films company, in 1991, was draining money and not resulting in any movies. Jersey went through money like it was water, and the TriStar horse never got to drink at the trough. Over the life of the deal, Jersey spent more than $7 million developing projects and millions more on overhead. Only two projects came to fruition—Matilda (1996) and Sunset Park (1996)—both long after I left.
"Under the Jersey deal, I agreed to invest $125,000 for a script based on an idea pitched to me by Quentin Tarantino, whose first film Reservoir Dogs had caused a stir in the movie business. There was a mutual respect: I liked Tarantino’s perpetual energy and his rat-tat-tat, one-film-allusion-a-minute way of talking, and he loved several of my better failures, such as Breathless (1983). But when he turned in the script for Pulp Fiction after working on it for two years, I felt that in a growing climate of antiviolence in the country, it was unredeemably violent. Quentin described the violence as cartoonish, but I didn’t see it that way. I had heard this before from Sam Peckinpah and times had changed.
"Violence has always been a part of movies, but I felt that Pulp Fiction had gone beyond the pale. Furthermore, I had reached a point in my life where my conscience wouldn’t allow me to do a film with such violence. Quentin told me that the now-famous scene where a dopey criminal gets his brains blown out and splattered all over the inside car windows would be mordantly funny and not disgusting.
"He was right. Both audiences and critics laughed.
When you are young, you are more apt to push the envelope. The older I get, I begin to realize that there is indeed some connection between violence in films and how people act in real life. I also realize that I will be judged on the kinds of films I have made. The truth is, I might not have done a film like Taxi Driver either at that point in my life, but I was willing to do it when I was younger.
Ultimately, I passed on Pulp Fiction, mainly because of the violence, which turned out to be a mistake for the company, but it’s a mistake every other studio in town also made—until Miramax finally picked it up.”

[[ note : “…Every Other Studio In Town…” ??! Medavoy’s parting shot regarding Pulp Fiction’s turnaround, i.e. ‘…I may have been wrong, but at least all of my industry counterparts were equally wrong.’ is horseshit.
As noted in Peter Biskind’s Down and Dirty Pictures [Pp. 223], regarding the same transaction: “Medavoy immediately put it into turnaround, but before it could go out producer Lawrence Bender relayed the script to Miramax’s Richard Gladstein…” when Weinstein would famously acquire the property after reading only the first-half. Nobody else had a chance to pass on Pulp Fiction, after Medavoy’s gaffe, because the same xeroxed copy he returned to Team Tarantino is the very same Harvey Weinstein picked up within the following days. Also, co-writer Roger Avery is a bit more revealing with TriStar Chairman’s hard pass:

”When we finished that script it was taken to… TriStar and a producer named Mike Medavoy. We turned it in and he said ‘this is the worst screenplay that this film company has ever been handed. This is awful. It’s not funny. It makes no sense. This guy’s dead, he’s alive. What’s going on?’ They put it into immediate turnaround.” —Roger Avery ]]

[Moses Gunaratnam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Started off a bit slow, but like others have said, this is a hidden gem into the inside workings of Hollywood. I learned a ton and it just helped me get an 87% on my cinema history test (a class I have yet to attend)! Thanks Mike for your honesty and I hope your legacy is filled with the praise it deserves.

[Libby Caldwell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good stuff. Definitely more business-focussed than a tell-all type book but I much prefer that anyway. I appreciated how transparent the author was with his successes and failures alike.

[Austin Lugo]

An autobiography is the truest of all books; for while it inevitably consists mainly of extinctions of the truth, shirkings of the truth, partial revealments of the truth, with hardly an instance of plain straight truth, the remorseless truth is there, between the lines...the result being that the reader knows the author in spite of his wily diligences." -Mark Twain

So is the telling of one studio exec's experience of the magical world known as Hollywood.

While there is every attempt to justify his failures, indulge in his auccesses, and take credit for things he had little to no part in, it is easy enough to see through the facade.

This is not a book about movies, but a vindictive, I told you so, they don't make em like they used to, gossip column.

It is a futile attempt to build something as silly as legacy for a man who deserves so much less.

As an exec, he is delusionally convinced that films are made not by stars, directors, writers, or editors, but studio executives.

For if he were to admit his own minor place in history, executives would cause nothing but pain for everyone involved, and no one, not even the villain, wants to be evil.

But so is the telling of one millionaire studio executive, taking funds far above any of the artists who made and continue to make art possible.

It's by no means a read worth attempting for those wishing to understand the endlessly complex world of film, but it is perfect for those who want to understand the mindset of any Studio exec during this current crisis of strikes.

It is not great. It is not good. But as a character study, it is endlessly fascinating.

[Aaron Brewington · Rating 3 out of 5]

My December reads were essays and a book on film, You’re Only as Good as Your Next One by Mike Medavoy. Medavoy is a long-time Hollywood studio executive who began his career in the 1960s and is still in the biz to this day. His resume includes Oscar-winners, the universally loved, and the downright hated. This fun, long read tells of his time in the industry from his start to the early 2000s.

After getting his start at United Artists, he helped found multiple studios that went bellyup, usually a few years after firing him. Might recognize these: Orion, TriStar, and Phoenix Pictures (which is still around). He goes through the pictures he green-lit at each of these and goes into some detail about why they worked or didn't. He also walks the reader through how the business changed while goiing through his work, using these films as examples of something larger that was going on in Hollywood or the world. It's all pretty eye-opening.

Some of the films he brought to the screen include: Amadeus, Annie Hall, Apocalypse Now, Dances with Wolves, Hook, Legends of the Fall, Network, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Philadelphia, Raging Bull, Rocky, The Silence of the Lambs, Sleepless in Seattle, The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and The Thin Red Line.

He doesn't shy away from his duds either. He details why they didn't work and ultimately bombed in usually hilarious fashion. Take1984's The Cotton Club, my personal favorite annecdote from the book. This film got started when legendary producer Robert Evans more or less got fired from Paramount for cocaine trafficing. He called up Medavoy saying that he had a movie he wanted to get made and he could sell it with three words: gangsters, music, and pussy.

With a pitch like that, of course this movie got made. Almost immediately, predictably, everything went to shit. Evans originally was going to direct but had no idea what he was doing. Orion (i.e. Medavoy) and Evans eventually brought in Francis Ford Coppola who was deeply in debt and despirate for money. He accepted though he and Evans had hated each other since The Godfather. The film ultimately took five years to make and went way over budget before losing money at the box office. Both Coppola and Evans blamed each other for the shitshow. Medavoy clearly sides with Coppola as Evans appears to be completely unhinged during this period.

With all the budget woes, Evans went to shadier and shadier backers as more respectable types started to cut ties. Eventually, Evans was taking money from Arab arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, and a guy named Roy Radin that Evans met through his former drug dealer, Karen Greenberger, who was dating Radin. Radin was murdered about a year before the film was released. This became known as "The Cotton Club Murder."

It gets weirder. In 1989 a contract killer and three others were sentenced for shooting Radin in the head and blowing up his body with dynamite to make identification by authorities more challenging. Among them was Greenberger who was angry about being cut out of a producer's role. Evans was considered a person of interest when two of the killers said that Evans and Greenberger hired them to take the guy out. At the trial, Evans pled the Fifth and refused to testify, though Greenberger later testified that Evans had no involvement in the crime. You can read more about in "The Cotton Club: A Scandal in Two Acts."

Anyway, those are the kinds of stories I loved the most, though that one was especially scandalous. In the book you'll get more of Evans behaving badly as well as famously poorly behaved John Milius and Jon Peters. Milius is mostly known for his work as a screenwriter for such films as Apocalypse Now, and for being the inspiration for the character Walter Sobchak from The Big Lebowski. Peters, on the otherhand, is known for being the inspiration for the film Shampoo and for the insane stories Kevin Smith tells about him in An Evening with Kevin Smith. His fuckery has since been put to screen in one of my faves from the last few years, Licorice Pizza, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Peters is portrayed by Bradley Cooper in the 2021 film and is completely unhinged. This period was during Peters's long domestic partnership with Barbra Streisand. He has since been married to Pamela Anderson, this in 2020, though Anderson said she was "never legally married" to the guy because the paperwork wasn't filed.

It's the stuff like this that I find super interesting. Hollywood, however, doesn't give us that juicy goss. Instead, we get bullshit stories that are only half true. Rarely is much of Hollywood star mythmaking accurate. Get discovered off the street or what have you. Lot of nepo babies out there.

Book ends Medavoy's early days with Pheonix. He mostly details his work on The Thin Red Line in 1998. This epic war film written and directed by Terrence Malick after a 20-year absense despite his reputation as a genius was a very big deal at the time. The movie rags I read at the time, Premiere and Flicks, and the message boards were losing their minds over it. It ended up being fine but somewhat disappointing. So it was nice to get some of the inside scoup on what all went down.

The final movie he details is The 6th Day which he talks about like it was Andrei Tarkovsky or something. I saw this in the theater with a couple dudes from my high school basketball team. It was an Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle where he plays a family man in the future who gets accidentally illegally cloned as part of a vast conspiracy. A billionaire's goons come for him, but come on, it's Arnold. We thought it was unintentially hilarious.

He then ends the book discussing the causes of the steady decline in theater attendance when he was writing the book, which has only gotten worse, esqecially with the pandemic and all. He says it mostly comes down to the economy, technology, and the bullshit Hollywood was putting out which they saw as more marketable as opposed to riskier films that might offer better rewards in the long run. According to Medavoy, the cost of marketing and producing now requires outside partners for high cost films which lowers the upside. Thus making all the choices of which pictures to make more difficult. The decision to rely on remakes and sequels at higher costs either makes people feel that they have seen a movie and can either wait and see it on the after-market or miss it all together. Obviously, this has only got worse.

[Bruce · Rating 2 out of 5]

A few interesting behind the scenes anecdotes buried in pages and pages of banal observations and lightweight artistic "philosophy," repeated over and over, that basically adds up to "find great artists and give them the means to make great art." Medavoy is quick to take credit for great successes but reluctant to admit to failures ("Hook" may have turned a profit, but it sucked) and flukes ("Dances With Wolves" was a huge success for no good reason). Lots of celebs make cameos, but Medavoy's recollections of them are less illuminating than a good People Weekly profile. For all that, I like Medavoy, because he reminds me of me: Talented enough at his job to hang with the real geniuses but neither an artist nor a natural networker, and so friendly with many but evidently beloved by few. The kind of guy everyone greets warmly when he arrives at the party, but no one notices when he leaves.

[Malcolm Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read many books by film executives and this rates among the most pedestrian and pretentious. His biggest joke is when he claims that his arrogance cloaked his shyness and insecurity. What a nebisch.
There is the usual axe grinding.For some unknown reason he doesn't seem to like David Puttnam.
This book sticks to executive infighting and has few filmmaking anecdotes.

[David Bush · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know that someone's autobiography is going to be extra-biased when they make a point of explaining at the beginning that it won't be. Even so... this thing is masturbatory. That said, still some very entertaining anecdotes.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a hands-off studio executive Medavoy doesn’t have as many good tales as those closer to the creative process but he does offer great insight into the changes that affected Hollywood from the 60s to the late 90s and he’ll still satisfy film buff nostalgia for Orion and United Artists and their slew of Best Picture winners. His anecdotes pick up markedly as he describes the bizarre world of Peter Guber and Jon Peters when they headed Sony and he Tristar and his production stories about The Thin Red Line alone make the book well worth the read.

[Adrienne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subtitle is misleading- this is a straightforward Hollywood memoir, as opposed to an analysis of 300 films. The writing is clear, the narrative chronological, and the focus is squarely on Medavoy’s career. I remembered many of the movies, so it was interesting to me. It was written more than 20 years ago, so certain things- Sean Penn as the greatest actor of his generation, Woody Allen as a persecuted genius, Danny DeVito as a director- have not held up well.

[David Farrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is the feeling at times that this is only one side of the story, which prevents this from being amazing. I could have used less political stuff (as I'm not from the US it wasn't as interesting) and more first hand on set stories. Those moments and tales were the best parts. From Rocky to One Flew over the cuckoo's nest to his interactions with Redford, Woody Allen and Speilberg. There's alot to enjoy for a film fan. Overall I'd give this 3.5 (rounded up here).

[Pekka Oohlala · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring book for every aspiring filmmaker and industry veterans alike. Filled with intriguing stories from behind the scenes, along the production, how some companies were founded and how some of the most legendary films were developed and distributed. Good collection of worst mistakes and best practices as well and a good reminder to just keep working since you’re only as good as your next one.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Born in Shanghai, raised in Chile, and seemingly as decent a Hollywood studio executive one can imagine. He put together many notable films in his time at United Artists, Orion, and TriStar (Rocky, Apocalypse Now, Dances With Wolves, The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia, and Terminator 1 & 2, to pick just a few). What a life! Come for the stories of Brando, Redford, and Schwarzenegger, stay for the rare self-awareness and humility of a man in such a powerful role. Recommended.

[Nick Leshi · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a film buff, I loved reading all the behind-the-scenes anecdotes about how certain movies have been made and revelations about how show business works (specifically Hollywood movies). Medavoy comes across as honest, offering tips that worked for him and revealing mistakes that almost doomed his career. It's a good read if you like the topic and know the movies he references.

[Lenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this as it's different than the other autobiographies of actors that I consume. But I do wish he'd gone a little more into what must have been a very interesting childhood so we could see how he became who he became a little more. However, I definitely recommend it as it's a very insightful book into how deals and packages are put together.

[Troy DeVolld · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are few things I enjoy more than an honest autobiography, and this is one of those rarities. Medavoy'd recollections tell the truth and are generally positive, even when describing difficult people and situations. This generosity of spirit carries the book, as he gives credit where due (and often overdue) throughout. The audiobook version is also a strong recommend.

[Brian J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun but one-note memoir about famed New Hollywood producer Mike Medavoy's rise to the top through United Artists. Some interesting stories, but anyone familiar with these movies will already know a lot of the content.

[David Cortes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting in many ways, but for a man who doesn't like to take credit, he sure can blow his own horn.

[Cristóbal Sepúlveda Cobo · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Second reading.

An engaging deep dive into the career of a producer and studio executive in Hollywood who tries to maintain the art of cinema in the face of pressing commercialism.

[Travis Gunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t go into reading expecting a specific thing, but like a lot of books about Hollywood and old style filmmaking, I found it interesting hearing from the producer side of things.

[Bill Shannon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A narrowly-focused but pretty interesting piece of Movie Industry Porn that foretold the great digital/broadband revolution close to 20 years ago. Medavoy is refreshingly humble while still managing to proudly highlight his successes.

[Snobbery and Decay · Rating 3 out of 5]

The problem with a Hollywood career tell-all books is the potential for ax-grinding, the proverbial right-setting of scores and the inevitable ego boosting. After all, the industry is renown for its inherent craving for both attention and recognition - not to mention big money. In the case of Mike Medavoy, one could expect all of the above and then some.

One look at his pedigree makes this presumption perfectly valid: Amadeus, The Silence of the Lamb, One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest, Ragging Bull, Philadelphia, Manhattan, Platoon - and that’s just by looking at the book’s cover. Indeed, there’s quite a bit of boasting going on - we’re told of his Oscar nominations and wins twice in the introduction alone. Sure enough, the book has its share of account’s settlings but none of it is either too mean nor outrageous. Medavoy isn’t this sort of man, clearly favouring decorum over cheap gossip. The man has taste after all. But a Hollywood memoir is a Hollywood memoir. So expect celebrities and award ceremonies, dramas, victories, failures and repartees.

In this utterly readable book, we get to hear about many of the great, quite a few of the good but fewer still of the films the author claims he should be shot for. What a pity. The making of flops are traditionally the most fascinating Hollywood tales of all. Regardless, You’re Only As Good As Your Next One: 100 Great Films, 100 Good Films, and 100 for Which I Should Be Shot succeeds for most part in being immensely entertaining, definitely a pre-requisite for this type of work, as long as it concerns itself with Hollywood and movie-making. The moment the author’s interest and involvement in politics are explored provided me with the ideal intermission, a quick dash to the loo before the third act.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

A pretty interesting look at Hollywood from the agent's and producer's side (Medavoy being an agent and then a producer). If you're hoping for juicy Hollywood gossip or dirt, this is a book to skip; Medavoy sticks to his own career and the changing nature of the movie buisness. I learned a lot, and I was entertained the whole time. There's better (and meaner) books about Hollywood out there, but this is worth picking up if you see at the used bookstore.

One caveat is that I'd advise keeping your BS detector on high alert; Medavoy claims that "The 6th Day" is a very intelligent movie, which I guess reasonable people can disagree about, but when he ventures into taking credit for the Adams Family movie because it spawned a trend of successes like the Beverly Hillbillies movie, well, that's the kind of thing I wouldn't want to unquestionably read and then start repeating in public.

[Barry Hammond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mike Medavoy started as an agent and became a studio executive, first with United Artists during the heydays of the 1970's when he and his partners launched the creative revolution that included films like One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Apocalypse Now, and Rocky. Later, he was one of the partners in Orion which backed films like Amadeus, The Terminator, Platoon and Silence Of The Lambs. He moved to Tri-Star, greenlighted Philadelphia and Sleepless in Seattle, then started Phoenix Pictures, which continues to develop top creative films. His memoirs cover creative and political adventures and disasters with some of Hollywoods top stars and directors. Fascinating reading for anyone with an interest in film. - BH.