Daniel Shi

“Index There is no index, people. So, you have to read the whole book all the way through to see if you’re in it. I’ll be honest—most of you are not. Still, read it all, even though it’s hundreds of pages. Think of it like doom-scrolling Twitter—”
― Kara Swisher, Burn Book: A Tech Love Story

“The rise of Marvel Studios over the past decade has been one of the most extraordinary stories in Hollywood history. Utilizing a crew of second-rate superheroes and run by a team of unproven executives, Marvel upended the industry’s conventional wisdom. Previously, almost everyone in Hollywood believed that the general public was interested only in marquee superheroes like Batman and Spider-Man, and nobody would see a movie about Ant-Man or the Guardians of the Galaxy; that the resources and experience of major studios gave them an unbeatable advantage over upstarts; that tightly managing budgets on would-be global “event” movies was penny-wise but pound-foolish; that tying together the plots of disparate films was too risky because if one failed, they all would; and that the only Hollywood brand name that meant anything to consumers was Disney.”
― Ben Fritz, The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies

“The management of the St. Regis Hotel rued the day they accepted to take on the opening night party. Celebrated, highly profiled? Yes. But nothing was worth the grief of having to deal with the likes of me!”
― Robert Evans, The Kid Stays In The Picture: A Hollywood Life

“What made the movie business unique in the history of corporate capitalism is captured in the screenwriter William Goldman’s maxim, true for many decades: “nobody knows anything.” No other industry pumped out so many products so frequently with so little foreknowledge of whether they would be any good. The only feasible business strategy, it appeared, was to sign up the best creative talent, trust your strongest hunches about what looked likely to appeal to millions of people, and hope you ended up with Back to the Future instead of Ishtar.”
― Ben Fritz, The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies