Sleepless in Hollywood: Tales from the New Abnormal in the Movie Business, Obst Lynda

Over the past decade, producer Lynda Obst gradually realized she was working in a Hollywood that was undergoing a drastic transformation. The industry where everything had once been familiar to her was suddenly disturbingly strange.

Combining her own industry experience and interviews with the brightest minds in the business, Obst explains what has stalled the vast movie-making machine. The calamitous DVD collapse helped usher in what she calls the New Abnormal (because Hollywood was never normal to begin with), and studios are now heavily dependent on foreign markets for profit, a situation which directly impacts the kind of entertainment we get to see. Can comedy survive if they dont get our jokes in Seoul or allow them in China? Why are studios making fewer movies than ever--and why are they bigger, more expensive, and nearly always sequels or recycled ideas?