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Lynda Obst Decries Hollywood’s ‘New Abnormal’

Twenty years after shepherding the classic 1993 rom-com Sleepless in Seattle, producer Lynda Obst is sharing something called Sleepless in Hollywood. Her second book arrives Tuesday and, befitting a treatise that regularly references gargantuan tentpole productions, has a prominent main pillar of its own.

Obst’s thesis is capitalized in the sub-title and solidly contextualized in the first chapter. The author uses the short-form of Scene rather than Chapter; so, from Scene One: The New Abnormal:

How did this happen? How did it become easier for someone who knows no one to make a movie for $150,000 than for someone who knows everyone to make one for $20 million? Or for a guy who made a movie for $100,000 to make his next movie a superhero tentpole for $100 million? Nothing makes any sense…

Including, in a fortuitous bit of timing for Obst, this past weekend’s Hollywood box office, with big-name comedy The Internship domestically doubled by low-budget thriller The Purge. Obst pegs 2008 as the year Hollywood officially transitioned from the “Old Abnormal” to the “New Abnormal” and also includes a fascinating look back at that year’s Writers Strike, during which Nikki Finke rose to full Deadline Hollywood prominence.

For those in LA, Obst will be at Book Soup this Wednesday to read from Sleepless in Hollywood and sign copies. More info here.

[Photo credity: Amy Stuart]

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