"This chronicle of 2012 is a slice of what happened during a watershed
year for the Hollywood movie industry. It's not the whole story, but
it's a mosaic of what went on, and why, and of where things are
heading."
What changed in one Hollywood year to produce a record-breaking box
office after two years of decline? How can the Sundance Festival
influence a film's fate, as it did for Beasts of the Southern Wild and
Searching for Sugar Man, which both went all the way to the Oscars?
Why did John Carter misfire and The Hunger Games succeed? How did
maneuvers at festivals such as South by Southwest (SXSW), Cannes,
Telluride, Toronto, and New York and at conventions such as CinemaCon
and Comic-Con benefit Amour, Django Unchained, Moonrise Kingdom,
Silver Linings Playbook, Les Misérables, The Life of Pi, The
Avengers, Lincoln, and Argo? What jeopardized Zero Dark Thirty's
launch? What role does gender bias still play in the industry? What are
the ten things that changed the 2012 Oscar race?
When it comes to film, Anne Thompson, a seasoned reporter and critic,
addresses these questions and more on her respected daily blog,
Thompson on Hollywood. Each year, she observes the Hollywood machine
at work: the indies at Sundance, the exhibitors' jockeying at CinemaCon,
the international scene at Cannes, the summer tentpoles, the fall's
"smart" films and festivals, the family-friendly and big films of the
holiday season, and the glamour of the Oscars(R). Inspired by William
Goldman's classic book The Season, which examined the overall Broadway
scene through a production-by-production analysis of one theatrical
season, Thompson had long wanted to apply a similar lens to the movie
business. When she chose 2012 as "the year" to track, she knew that
box-office and DVD sales were declining, production costs were soaring,
and the digital revolution was making big waves, but she had no idea
that events would converge to bring radical structural movement,
record-setting box-office revenues, and what she calls "sublime
moviemaking."
Though impossible to mention all 670-plus films released in 2012,
Thompson includes many in this book, while focusing on the nine Best
Picture nominees and the personalities and powers behind them.
Reflecting on the year, Thompson concludes, "The best movies get made
because filmmakers, financiers, champions, and a great many gifted
creative people stubbornly ignore the obstacles. The question going
forward is how adaptive these people are, and how flexible is the
industry itself?"
