A shockingly candid, hilarious account of how two young producers broke into the Hollywood studio system—and survived the shark-eat-shark insanity to become Hollywood players.
“Few books capture the roller-coaster ride of trying to get a movie made as enjoyably as this one.”—Roger Avary, cowriter, Pulp Fiction
Thousands of people dream about making it big in Hollywood, but almost all of them end up being eaten alive. When aspiring producer Jane Hamsher and her madman partner Don Murphy set up shop in Jane’s dining room after graduating from film school, they were too naive to know that people like themselves—far removed from the Porsche-driving studio elite—should never succeed in the movie business.
Then Jane and Don stumbled upon a script for a film written by a geeky filmmaker-wannabe named Quentin Tarantino; it was called Natural Born Killers, and they liked it so much they optioned it for the bargain price of $10,000. But, suddenly, after Reservoir Dogs turned Tarantino into an overnight sensation, he and every major studio in town decided they wanted control of the script, pitting Jane and Don up against some of the meanest, toughest players in Hollywood.
From the script meetings to the movie set to the marketing and distribution process, Killer Instinct takes you behind the scenes and provides an insider’s look at the “New Hollywood”—told by one who learned how to survive it the hard way. It exposes how deals are really struck and stars are picked, and how the balance of power in Hollywood now favors the Quentin Tarantinos of the world who can add the “indie” cachet to big-budget monsters. Fresh, witty, and irreverent, Killer Instinct provides an unprecedented look inside this wild and irresistible industry.
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