About the Book:

What changed in one Hollywood year to produce a record-breaking box office after two years of decline? The $11 Billion Year: From Sundance to the Oscars, an Inside Look at the Changing Hollywood System is an in-depth chronicle of what happened during 12 months in the Hollywood movie industry.

The emphasis is on those projects vying for supremacy – critically and culturally, but above all else, financially – in 2012, the watershed year that all theatres shifted from showing 35mm film to all-digital projection. 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 Disney's $200 million write-off known as 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?

Veteran industry reporter and columnist Anne Thompson has covered the Hollywood beat for decades, writing for various monthly, weekly, bi-weekly, and daily publications. 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. 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, Anne 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 ticket prices were escalating and DVD sales were declining, production and marketing costs were soaring, exhibition windows were shortening, and the incredible impact of the digital revolution – from VOD streaming to IMAX – was making big waves, but she had no idea that events would converge to bring radical structural movement, record-setting box-office revenues – the $11 billion of the title refers to film income for one year, and that's just domestic.

Though impossible to mention all 670-plus films released in 2012, Anne 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, she 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?"

What people say:

"Nobody reports on the movie business with greater savvy or a sharper eye than Anne Thompson. In this valuable book she explores an entire year's worth of events, clarifying the Big Picture while revealing insider details along the way. What a juicy read." — Leonard Maltin, American film critic and historian

"The $11 Billion Year combines insight, intelligence, and irony. Whether Anne Thompson explains the growing importance of film festivals like Telluride, or dissects how a marketing strategy worked, she gives us '2012: A Movie Odyssey'." — Annette Insdorf, Director of Undergraduate Film Studies, Columbia University

"I loved it! The $11 Billion Year is both a wonderful read and an informative one. Not always the same. Anyone who is interested in movies, business, or American culture should read this book. You could make a movie about this book about making (and marketing) movies." — David Black, award-winning American film & TV screenwriter

"An in-depth analysis of the changing business of filmmaking ... Thompson also provides personally gleaned insights from the directors and stars of the major 2012 vehicles. Why didn't the prestigious “Lincoln” win Best Picture? Read and learn." — New York Daily News

About the Author:

Anne Thompson is an American journalist who has written on film and on the culture of the entertainment industry for major entertainment dailies and respected magazines. She has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Observer, and other newspapers as well. She writes regularly for IndieWire and is the founder of the Thompson on Hollywood blog.