from Script: Where Film Begins magazine
"The Buzz: What to Read"

Vol. 7, No. 6
Page 14

The Megahit Movies
by Richard Michaels Stefanik
Multimedia Systems Group

$24.95
311 pages
ISBN: 1-882373-01-4

Hollywood has produced thousands of feature films, but only a few have become megahit movies. What is is about the stories and characters in these films that made them so popular? The Megahit Movies analyzes films which have generated more than $250 million in North American Box Office receipts. It presents principles of story construction that can be used to develop popular movies by providing an analysis of cinematic techniques.

The book is designed for writers, directors, and producers who want to create commercially successful films. The fundamentals of dramatic structure, the human emotions, and the construction of humorous characters and situations are explained, with examples drawn from the most popular films ever produced. The Megahit Movies book is a revised and expanded edition of Structures of Fantasy, which analyzes the dramatic and comic elements found in popular movies. This book has been selected by the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) Mentor's Program for inclusion in the list of Recommended Screenwriting Books. It is also listed as one of the "Hot Screenwriting Titles" in the WGA Library for "Craft of Writing" category.

Richard Michaels Stefanik was a Screenwriting Fellow at the American Film Institute, then worked at several Hollywood studios including Paramount Pictures, and Walt Disney Prods. He was awarded MA degree in Philosophy and Logic at Oxford University. To find out more about both books, you can log on to: www.megahitmovies.com