Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of Those Guys Have All the Fun comes the unvarnished, comprehensive, and astonishing history of HBO, told for the first time through the disruptors who led its epic rise to prestige and changed the way we watch television forever.
The exclusive story of HBO's key creators, executives, actors, and directors gives readers an unprecedented peek behind the curtain at the founding and triumph of the first "pay-channel" that brought America The Sopranos, Sex and the City, The Wire, Succession, and countless, groundbreaking, culture-shifting shows. James Andrew Miller collects insider accounts of the humble beginnings, devastating missteps, controversial business decisions, and, of course, backstage drama and celebrity gossip from the set.
Since televisions entered Americans' living rooms, the question of whether programming should be "free"--paid for with advertising--has loomed, to the extent that some broadcasters, lobbyists and fearmongers warned someone would come along and disrupt their Madison Avenue-championed business model. But who would pay for something that had always been free? Home Box Office dared to ask that question in 1972, opening the doors for other pay-channels and ultimately the streaming platforms that are now the norm. They created different, better content--or at least they convinced viewers that different was better. HBO gave us violent scenes with blood and guts, shows like Tales from the Crypt that were actually scary, romcoms with sex instead of suggestion. We take their big-budget, "prestige" TV for granted now, but their success was far from assured at the outset.
HBO's audacity built the viewing culture we have today and permanently transformed the television landscape.
Synopsis
Tinderbox tells the exclusive, explosive, uninhibited true story of HBO and how it burst onto the American scene and screen to detonate a revolution and transform our relationship with television forever.
The Sopranos, Game of Thrones, Sex and the City, The Wire, Succession...HBO has long been the home of epic shows, as well as the source for brilliant new movies, news-making documentaries, and controversial sports journalism. By thinking big, trashing tired formulas, and killing off cliches long past their primes, HBO shook off the shackles of convention and led the way to a bolder world of content, opening the door to all that was new, original, and worthy of our attention.
In Tinderbox, award-winning journalist James Andrew Miller uncovers a bottomless trove of secrets and surprises, revealing new conflicts, insights, and analysis. As he did to great acclaim with SNL in Live from New York; with ESPN in Those Guys Have All the Fun; and with talent agency CAA in Powerhouse, Miller continues his record of extraordinary access to the most important voices, this time speaking with talents ranging from Abrams (J. J.) to Zendaya, as well as every single living president of HBO--and hundreds of other major players.
Over the course of more than 650 interviews with key sources, Miller reveals how fraught HBO's journey has been, capturing the drama and the comedy off-camera and inside boardrooms as HBO created and mobilized a daring new content universe, and, in doing so, reshaped storytelling and upended our entertainment lives forever.