Opening Weekend
An Insider's Look at Marketing Hollywood's Hits and Flops
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Narrated by:
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Jim Fredrick
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By:
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Jim Fredrick
About this listen
In a world where movie marketers are the stars of the story, Opening Weekend: An Insider's Look at Marketing Hollywood's Hits and Flops recounts Jim Fredrick's journey through the realm of movie marketing. Fredrick offers readers exclusive access to behind-the-scenes anecdotes and firsthand accounts of working with studio executives and navigating relationships with famous movie stars and directors.
After starting his career in 1983 as a trailer editor and producer at famed advertising boutique Intralink, Jim Fredrick went on to serve as president of marketing at Castle Rock Entertainment; senior vice president of creative advertising at Warner Bros.; and executive vice president of marketing at Sony Screen Gems. In 2011, he founded his own company, Jim Fredrick Motion Picture Marketing.
Across a span of thirty-five years, Fredrick's roles as a trailer maker and studio executive allowed him to craft advertising campaigns for a range of movies, from such iconic cinematic gems as The Shawshank Redemption to the widely beloved Harry Potter franchise, to commercial failures like The Adventures of Pluto Nash and Fired Up! Opening Weekend explores the intricacies of the lesser-known business of film distribution and marketing, unraveling the complex mechanisms through which movies are sold to discriminating audiences. Replete with triumphs, setbacks, and the relentless spirit that drives the creation and promotion of cinematic masterpieces, Opening Weekend promises an enthralling glimpse into the previously untold world of Hollywood movies.
©2024 Jim Fredrick (P)2024 University Press of MississippiListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
When movies cost hundreds of millions to make and market, the magnitude of the wagers is astonishing. Vast riches rain down on those who gamble wisely, and careers are made and lost in one weekend. But never is this box-office race more feverish than during the summer blockbuster season, when the studios roll out their most expensive, effects-laden pictures in a feverish race to win the box-office derby. Peter Bart here brings us a marvelously entertaining behind-the-scenes portrait of moviemaking.
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classic Peter Bart
- By DS on 02-15-13
By: Peter Bart
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A Disturbance in the Force
- How and Why the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened
- By: Steve Kozak
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Even by the standards of the 1970s, even compared to Jar-Jar Binks, the legendary 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special is a peerlessly cringeworthy pop-culture artifact.
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Padded with Information Unrelated to the Special
- By Alan on 12-28-23
By: Steve Kozak
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Ultra-Something
- By: Brendan Leonard
- Narrated by: Brendan Leonard
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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In this quirky deep dive, Outside Magazine columnist Brendan Leonard explores humans’ weird proclivity for endurance, and how we express it—including, but not limited to distance running, factory work, benign masochism, improv comedy, and rooting for the Buffalo Bills.
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Can’t go wrong with semi-rad!
- By Travis M. Smith on 12-12-24
By: Brendan Leonard
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Vanessa Bares All
- Frank, Funny and Fearless
- By: Vanessa Feltz
- Narrated by: Vanessa Feltz
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
She's spent thirty-five years in the public eye: 'Vanessa's Friends Say She's Drinking Custard!' Vanessa seizes her chance to set the record straight in this warm, witty, intensely human story. She spares no one's blushes, including her own. How could someone so clever make such cataclysmic mistakes? Vanessa's often wrong, but always relatable. She puts the 'Oh my goodness, I can never unread that paragraph!' into celebrity autobiography.
By: Vanessa Feltz
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Box Office Poison
- Hollywood's Story in a Century of Flops
- By: Tim Robey
- Narrated by: Tim Robey
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
From grand follies to misunderstood masterpieces, disastrous sequels to catastrophic literary adaptations, Box Office Poison tells a hugely entertaining alternative history of Hollywood, through a century of its most notable flops. What can these films tell us about the Hollywood system, the public’s appetite–or lack of it–and the circumstances that saw such flops actually made? Away from the canon, this is the definitive take on these ill-fated, but essential celluloid failures.
By: Tim Robey
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The Director Should've Shot You
- Memoirs of the Film Trade
- By: Alan Dean Foster
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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In The Director Should've Shot You, Foster shares all the colorful stories behind his adaptations of films, TV shows, and video games. He had the honor of working on big-name properties like Star Trek, Terminator, and The Thing. He served as ghost writer for the novelization of the original Star Wars and got to write the sequel—sort of. And in between his work for Hollywood, he managed to become a hugely successful science fiction and fantasy author with series like the Adventures of Pip & Flinx and the Icerigger Trilogy.
By: Alan Dean Foster
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The Gross
- The Hits, the Flops: The Summer That Ate Hollywood
- By: Peter Bart
- Narrated by: Stuart Langton
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When movies cost hundreds of millions to make and market, the magnitude of the wagers is astonishing. Vast riches rain down on those who gamble wisely, and careers are made and lost in one weekend. But never is this box-office race more feverish than during the summer blockbuster season, when the studios roll out their most expensive, effects-laden pictures in a feverish race to win the box-office derby. Peter Bart here brings us a marvelously entertaining behind-the-scenes portrait of moviemaking.
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classic Peter Bart
- By DS on 02-15-13
By: Peter Bart
-
A Disturbance in the Force
- How and Why the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened
- By: Steve Kozak
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Even by the standards of the 1970s, even compared to Jar-Jar Binks, the legendary 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special is a peerlessly cringeworthy pop-culture artifact.
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Padded with Information Unrelated to the Special
- By Alan on 12-28-23
By: Steve Kozak
-
Ultra-Something
- By: Brendan Leonard
- Narrated by: Brendan Leonard
- Length: 5 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this quirky deep dive, Outside Magazine columnist Brendan Leonard explores humans’ weird proclivity for endurance, and how we express it—including, but not limited to distance running, factory work, benign masochism, improv comedy, and rooting for the Buffalo Bills.
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Can’t go wrong with semi-rad!
- By Travis M. Smith on 12-12-24
By: Brendan Leonard
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Vanessa Bares All
- Frank, Funny and Fearless
- By: Vanessa Feltz
- Narrated by: Vanessa Feltz
- Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
She's spent thirty-five years in the public eye: 'Vanessa's Friends Say She's Drinking Custard!' Vanessa seizes her chance to set the record straight in this warm, witty, intensely human story. She spares no one's blushes, including her own. How could someone so clever make such cataclysmic mistakes? Vanessa's often wrong, but always relatable. She puts the 'Oh my goodness, I can never unread that paragraph!' into celebrity autobiography.
By: Vanessa Feltz
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The Path to Paradise
- A Francis Ford Coppola Story
- By: Sam Wasson
- Narrated by: Timothy Andrés Pabon
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Francis Ford Coppola is one of the great American dreamers, and his most magnificent dream is American Zoetrope, the production company he founded in San Francisco years before his gargantuan success, when he was only thirty. Through Zoetrope’s experimental, communal utopia, Coppola attempted to reimagine the entire pursuit of moviemaking. Now, more than fifty years later, despite myriad setbacks, the visionary filmmaker’s dream persists, most notably in the production of his decades-in-the-making film and the culmination of his utopian ideals, Megalopolis.
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Narrator was awful
- By Cyrus Nowrasteh on 12-17-23
By: Sam Wasson
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The Last Action Heroes
- The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood's Kings of Carnage
- By: Nick de Semlyen
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The Last Action Heroes opens in May 1990 in Cannes, with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone waltzing together, cheered on by a crowd of famous faces. After years of bitter combat, the world’s biggest action stars have at last made peace. In this wildly entertaining account of the golden age of the action movie, Nick de Semlyen charts Stallone and Schwarzenegger’s carnage-packed journey from enmity to friendship against the backdrop of Reagan’s America and the Cold War.
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Fantastic!
- By Alan on 07-17-23
By: Nick de Semlyen
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The Friedkin Connection
- A Memoir
- By: William Friedkin
- Narrated by: William Friedkin
- Length: 19 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Friedkin Connection takes listeners from the streets of Chicago to the suites of Hollywood and from the sixties to today. William Friedkin offers a candid look at a thrilling era of Hollywood cinema, when traditional storytelling gave way to the rebellious and alternative; when filmmakers like him captured the paranoia and fear of a nation undergoing a cultural nervous breakdown.
By: William Friedkin
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Damn Glad to Meet You
- My Seven Decades in the Hollywood Trenches
- By: Tim Matheson
- Narrated by: Tim Matheson
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past seven decades, Tim Matheson has been an on-screen favorite in Hollywood. In his debut memoir, Tim takes fans behind-the-scenes of his illustrious career, and reveals what it was like to learn from and work alongside the greats, including Lucille Ball, Dick Van Dyke, Steven Spielberg, and Aaron Sorkin. Tim also talks about how he transitioned from acting to directing, the role in The West Wing that nabbed him two Emmy nominations–and so much more.
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Crazy life and live to talk about it
- By Charles on 11-20-24
By: Tim Matheson
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Mike Nichols
- A Life
- By: Mark Harris
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 20 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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By the acclaimed author of Pictures at a Revolution and Five Came Back comes a magnificent biography of one of the most protean creative forces in American entertainment history, a life of dazzling highs and vertiginous plunges - some of the worst largely unknown until now. Mark Harris explores, with brilliantly vivid detail and insight, the life, work, struggle, and passion of an artist and man in constant motion.
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Loved the book, but driven nuts my mispronounced names.
- By Amazon Customer on 02-14-21
By: Mark Harris
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Surely You Can't Be Serious
- The True Story of Airplane!
- By: David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, Jerry Zucker
- Narrated by: "Weird Al" Yankovic, Arne Schmidt, Barry Diller, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Surely You Can’t Be Serious is the first-ever oral history of the making of Airplane! by the creators, and of the beginnings of the ZAZ trio (Zucker, Abrahams, Zucker) – charting the rise of their comedy troupe Kentucky Fried Theater in Madison, Wisconsin all the way to premiere night. The directors explain what drew them to filmmaking and in particular, comedy.
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Absolutely fantastic
- By A. Soergel on 10-11-23
By: David Zucker, and others
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Hits, Flops, and Other Illusions
- My Fortysomething Years in Hollywood
- By: Ed Zwick
- Narrated by: Ed Zwick
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Though there are many factors behind such success, including luck and the contributions of his creative partner Marshall Herskovitz, he’s known to have a special talent for bringing out the best in the people he’s worked with, notably the actors. In those intense collaborations, he seeks to discover the small pieces of connective tissue, vulnerability, and fellowship that can help an actor realize their character in full.
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Authentic, Sobering & Full of Grace
- By David_Leah Wiley on 02-17-24
By: Ed Zwick
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Kubrick
- An Odyssey
- By: Robert P. Kolker, Nathan Abrams
- Narrated by: Perry Daniels
- Length: 24 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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The enigmatic and elusive filmmaker Stanley Kubrick has not been treated to a full-length biography in over twenty years. Stanley Kubrick: An Odyssey fills that gap. This definitive book is based on access to the latest research, especially Kubrick's archive at the University of the Arts, London, as well as other private papers plus new interviews with family members and those who worked with him. It offers comprehensive and in-depth coverage of Kubrick's personal, private, public, and working life.
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The Ultimate Biography
- By Kris on 08-30-24
By: Robert P. Kolker, and others
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Kill the Dog
- The First Book on Screenwriting to Tell You the Truth
- By: Paul Guyot
- Narrated by: Paul Guyot
- Length: 7 hrs
- Unabridged
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Every aspect of screenwriting is covered with an authority and credibility never seen in any book to come before. Told with honesty, humor, and vulnerability from the real-world perspective of a working, professional screenwriter, Kill the Dog reveals the secrets of what it takes to have a successful career as a Hollywood screenwriter.
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Not a lot learned. Here's a summary.
- By Samuel D R on 01-28-24
By: Paul Guyot
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Best. Movie. Year. Ever.
- How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen
- By: Brian Raftery
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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From a veteran culture writer and modern movie expert, a celebration and analysis of the movies of 1999 - arguably the most groundbreaking year in American cinematic history.
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Like talking about movies with a friend
- By Shawn Inmon on 05-30-19
By: Brian Raftery
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The Future Was Now
- Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982
- By: Chris Nashawaty
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the summer of 1982, eight science fiction films were released within six weeks of one another. E.T., Tron, Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, Conan the Barbarian, Blade Runner, Poltergeist, The Thing, and Mad Max: The Road Warrior changed the careers of some of Hollywood's now biggest names―altering the art of movie-making to this day.
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Great story about an incredible year in sci fi film making.
- By Jesse Poole Van Swol on 10-04-24
By: Chris Nashawaty
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All About Me!
- My Remarkable Life in Show Business
- By: Mel Brooks
- Narrated by: Mel Brooks
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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At 95, the legendary Mel Brooks continues to set the standard for comedy across television, film, and the stage. Now, for the first time, this EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) winner shares his story in his own words.
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Wonderful and nostalgic
- By GAT on 12-07-21
By: Mel Brooks
What listeners say about Opening Weekend
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Debbie Miller
- 10-30-24
Amazing Chronicle From An Insiders Experience In Hollywood
Bravo!! I love everything about this book. Jim (the author) is so knowledgeable and honest, and relates all his experiences during his very storied career with intelligence, candor, humor and humility. This is a rare opportunity for readers to get a true behind the scenes look at movie marketing at the highest level. And having the author narrate really makes it feel like you’re just sitting with him, face-to-face, while he shares all his wild stories. I can’t recommend highly enough!
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- J Bomb
- 12-01-24
Excellent, detailed and SO engaging.
This was one of my favorite audio books of the year! It contained an exemplary combination of detail, humor and charm, this is one of the better freshman attempts I’ve read. The author REALLY gives you a feel for the industry through the decades that he worked at different levels and for different companies. He’s really gracious, but also quite candid about his interactions with people from the regular co-workers, to titans in the industry, to the uber famous actors (and there are plenty!). It includes TONS of funny little stories and asides about huge projects, giving a great deal of color to round out the picture of the movie industry that he paints so beautifully. I love it when authors read their own books, particularly when they are autobiographical and Jim’s narration is top notch for a first time narrator.
If you have any question about whether or not to give this title a try, just take a look at the dust jacket recommendations and you’ll see what an amazing story and storyteller you are in for.
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