Book of the week: The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole LaPorte

(Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28)

For anyone interested in the “power players, inside dealings, and tick-tock accounts of Hollywood filmmaking,” Nicole LaPorte’s new book is essential reading, said John Lippman in the Los Angeles Times. It takes readers behind the scenes at DreamWorks SKG, which was founded in 1994 by three of Holly­wood’s most influential men—music mogul David Geffen, former Disney executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, and director Steven Spielberg.

“The trio envisioned a Hollywood utopia where creativity would trump corporate greed,” said Adam Markovitz in Entertainment Weekly. But despite some successes—notably Saving Private Ryan and Shrek—over the next decade “movies tanked, egos clashed,” and DreamWorks ended up on the auction block. Over the course of a 544-page book, LaPorte’s “no-detail-too-small approach” proves to be “patience-testing.” Spielberg may not be a businessman, but he could teach LaPorte “a thing or two” about storytelling.

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