<p>Few Hollywood memoirs have offered as distinctive and candid a perspective on the film industry as producer and studio executive Mike Medavoy's <em>You're Only As Good As Your Next One.</em> Here is a deeply personal history of four decades in American film, told by a pivotal player in the creation of more than three hundred films -- or, as Medavoy distinguishes them, &quot;one hundred great films, one hundred good films, and one hundred for which I should be shot.&quot; Included are eight Best Picture Oscar winners. On all of them, he knows the behind-the-scenes dramas, who got credit for whose achievements, and who didn't get credit but should have.</p>

<p>His ties to four major studios mirror the most fascinating chapters in American filmmaking. At United Artists, he and his partners were behind the creative revolution of the hot young directors of the 1970s, and they backed such seminal films as <em>Apocalypse Now, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,</em> and <em>Rocky.</em> At Orion Pictures, he backed such '80s smashes as <em>Amadeus, The Terminator, Platoon,</em> and <em>The Silence of the Lambs.</em> He navigated the '90s corporate culture at TriStar Pictures, green-lighting <em>Philadelphia</em> and <em>Sleepless in Seattle.</em> Now at his own Phoenix Pictures, the producer of such acclaimed works as <em>The People vs. Larry Flynt</em> and <em>The Thin Red Line</em> controls his destiny, but never strays far from controversy. Medavoy pulls no punches in telling his story of financial and political maneuvering, great triumphs and the inevitable disasters, and working with the industry's brightest star power including Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Milos Forman, Jonathan Demme, Francis Coppola, John Milius, Terrence Malick, Kevin Costner, Tom Hanks, Jane Fonda, Warren Beatty, Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Sharon Stone, Michael Douglas, Meg Ryan, Dustin Hoffman, and countless others.</p>

<p>This is also the story of how movie studio buyouts have stymied the creative process and shaped the future of film. Gone is the hands-off golden age that spawned some of the most influential and successful films of our time. An eyewitness to Hollywood history in the making, Mike Medavoy gives a powerful and poignant view of the past and future of a world he knows intimately.</p>