The Last Kings of Hollywood: Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg – And the Battle for the Soul of American Cinema by Paul Fischer

Coppola – The Godfather. Spielberg – Jaws. Lucas – Star Wars. This is story of the most successful group of friends in the history of cinema and how they reshaped it forever. The Last Kings of Hollywood tells the thrilling, dramatic inside story of how the three filmmakers rivalled and supported each other, fell out and reconciled, and struggled to reinvent popular American cinema. Along the way, Coppola directed The Godfather, then the highest-grossing film of all-time, until Spielberg surpassed it with Jaws – whose record Lucas broke with Star Wars, which Spielberg surpassed again with E.T.

By the early 1980s, they were the richest, best-known filmmakers in the world, each with an empire of their own. The Last Kings of Hollywood is an unprecedented chronicle of their rise, their dreams and demons, their triumphs and their failures – intimate, extraordinary, and supremely entertaining.