Marketing Veteran Gerry Rich On His New Book, ‘Chasing Hollywood’

EXCLUSIVE: Motion picture marketing veteran Gerry Rich, whose long career from the ’90s to current day includes stints at Miramax, MGM, Paramount, Columbia Pictures and Amazon MGM, has written a book all about it. Titled Chasing Hollywood: A Marketing Chief’s Lessons on Breaking Through, it blends memoir, film history, juicy behind-the-scenes stories and practical marketing insights to examine some of the most iconic — and not-so iconic — films of the 1990s and 2000s from Iron Man to James Bond, the Weinsteins machine, and everything in between.

Rich is one of those executives who has seen it all and lived to tell about it, and that is what he is doing with this book coming October 13, 2026 from HarperCollins Leadership. Even as he is still doing this job, right now as a consultant, it hasn’t stopped him from telling the truth about what he has seen, how he got from St. Louis to Hollywood, survived the flops, celebrated the successes, worked with some very colorful personalities, and all the while providing what he tells me are “teachable” moments of use to anyone in or out of the biz. “Chasing Hollywood” also speaks directly to today’s marketing landscape where cutting through all the noise, most notably social media, can be a, uh, challenge. He says audiences don’t always know what they want until they see “something new”, and that often comes from the movies most willing to take risks, to challenge conventions. In fact the book is so up to date he has just rewritten his final chapter to include the You Tube explosion on the box office of the past few weeks with Backrooms and Obsession, and what that means for the industry as well as the art of marketing movies.

He has been in rooms with Steven Spielberg, Pedro Almodovar, Barbara Broccoli, Quentin Tarantino, Ridley Scott, Harvey and Bob Weinstein, Dawn Steel, and countless others in the business of making movies over the past few decades, all of them with definite ideas about selling their wares to the public. I had first hand experience with him all the way back to the early 90’s when I was still the movie segment producer for Entertainment Tonight, and we met just as he started working with Miramax and was tasked in his first week with a tiny 1991 Irish movie called Hear My Song that Harvey Weinstein was determined to see Jaws-style coverage on shows like mine. That task is described hilariously in this book, as are many other moments like it that Rich has been an eyewitness to, the good the bad and the ugly, as well as being a key mover and shaker in bringing movies to the world. Because of this association I am pleased Deadline is the first stop for him in talking about why this book, and why now. It is so chalk full of anecdotes and conversations I had to wonder if he has judiciously been taking notes in all those meetings over the years.

DEADLINE: How did you remember all of this so vividly as you do in this book? Did you carry around a notebook? It really took me back to that time I first met you.

GERRY RICH: No, Pete, not a single note. I think memories are made from those indelible moments that you just don’t forget. And actually I was a bit surprised because I knew I was leaving Amazon. I didn’t know when I was going to leave, but I kept putting it off, but I knew I wanted to leave and do something different and I thought the book was a great opportunity. And in going down the rabbit hole of all the past experiences, it was really cathartic to see how easily those moments came back and created this story. And they were fresh memories because they were so poignant. They were so indelible in my mind and they were so meaningful that they came back, and many more that were more secondary and tertiary, but it was such a memorable journey and it has been, and will continue to be, that I thought it was a good time to put pen to paper and do something like this because if not now, when?

DEADLINE: Are you worried you will never eat lunch again in this town when this comes out?

RICH: I’m working as a consultant and I’m looking for new opportunities and I feel that some of these past experiences really help inform new strategies in this new marketplace. So I feel like it’s all relevant and I believe that the book wasn’t written to scorch the Earth. It was really to entertain and inspire and really I think Call to Life. Most of the people I talk about in the book are people that really, even difficult people, inspired me and I learned so much from. As you know, there were so many of these larger than life personalities that ran this business and I feel so fortunate to have been exposed to them, to have been in rooms with them, to be able to collaborate with them. I think some of that showmanship is valuable moving into this new or evolving world of entertainment.

DEADLINE: Some of what you describe is scary. It makes me wonder why anyone would want to subject themselves to this, such as some of the anecdotes about working with the Weinsteins.

RICH: I got to say this though, I have the little blurb at the end of that chapter. Sometimes those most difficult rooms, the most hellish of circumstances maybe you want to get out of it as soon as possible, but it just may be that moment that you’re exactly in the right place doing exactly what you need to do for that moment in time. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world even though I wanted out. I wanted out on the second day. And as fate would have it, it was exactly where I needed to be. It gave me the ground game. And you know, Pete, you know the difference of disciplines and methodologies between the scrappy independents and the studios. And those lessons are like going through Navy SEALs. If you stay too long, you become impervious to it, you become numb to it, you become it. But if you could take those learnings and then parlay that into your next chapter and not stay too long where you’re damaged, then that might be the perfect balance.

DEADLINE: Any people you decided to leave out? I know you. You have stories.

RICH: Yeah, I have a lot of stories. I didn’t want this to be a cynical story. I didn’t want it to be a cynical book. I wanted to focus more on the people that moved me, informed me, inspired me, educated me. There are a lot of unsavory people you encounter in these journeys as you know, but unless there was a kind of teachable moment from those moments, I left those out. The studios tend to lead to a lot of political backfire. The work is hard enough, but when you add politics into it, it takes it to another level. So I really wanted to focus on the moments that really moved me, inspired me, and made me better at what I did. Even difficult filmmakers. I worked a lot with Scott Rudin and had a lot of uncomfortable meetings with him, but I admire his work ethic. I think he’s got exquisite taste and he kept me at the top of my game. So that’s why I was comfortable talking about those moments. There’s some adversity in it, but it was adversity that had a teachable moment that I included, and other things that just were not necessary.

DEADLINE: This is coming out at a time where the business is changing so rapidly and the challenges of marketing are far different that when you started.

RICH: I think it is challenging because I think in the way we communicate with moviegoers, primarily digitally, you get a fraction of a second to engage them at the beginning. And if you don’t get them at the beginning, their finger is on the scroll button. So I think it’s harder and harder to really make those impressions. I think it was infinitely easier when you have somewhat captivated audiences either in theaters seeing trailers, but we had other means, other media that I think really held captivated audiences and held their attention. We see that very rarely with television these days, but there’s certain event type programming that I think still works, particularly live sports for the right movie and reaching the right movie goer. I still think linear television is an essential medium for reaching those action fans and those male moviegoers.

But it’s a fractured marketplace. It’s a fractured landscape. I think there’s a lot of confusion in the marketplace. Is something a movie that you see in theaters or a streaming movie? Or I think there’s just a lot of confusion when you see entertainment content. So it’s more difficult than ever to really get that message across.

DEADLINE: Right now all of Hollywood seems to be chasing the You Tube phenomenon which seems to be targeting and really bringing young people back to theatres.

RICH: And I got to say too, I think that, and I rewrote the last chapter because of the phenomenon of this May, because when people talk about the summer of 2026, they’re going to talk about these two movies that were on nobody’s radar a year ago. That’s Backrooms and Obsession. And Obsession in particular was this movie that defied gravity and every week it went up rather than any attrition. And I think people are craving originality but sometimes feel safer with movies that they know. But I think a movie like Obsession really hit the zeitgeist and brought in after its first weekend, people who may or may not see horror movies and that it just took on a life of its own and played and played and played. And I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I thought it’s the kind of movie you want to see with 300 strangers and your friends. It is a true theatrical experience. It’s original, it’s fun, it’s funny, there’s great jump scares. And I imagine that at the end of that weekend or subsequent weekends, there are a lot of studio heads scratching their heads saying, ‘Where’s my Obsession? Where’s my YouTube creator? Where’s my Curry Barker?’And the studio system doesn’t necessarily lend itself to finding that talent because they’re making movies for big global audiences. But man, it’s exciting. And Pete, it reminds me a little bit of what we experienced in the ’90s when we were the first to take out some of the independent movies that expanded beyond arthouses and became cultural moments.

DEADLINE: And yes in that regard you talk in the book about the sensation of The Crying Game at Miramax.

RICH: The Crying Game and some of those that followed. Tarantino’s first movie, Resovoir Dogs or Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom. , I think a lot of studios were looking at that business saying, ‘How do we get in on that?’ like they are today with the films that we saw this past month. And that’s when Disney first handed over a check and bought Miramax to get into that business. And I think the Miramax phenomenon led to the Searchlight phenomenon and people like Peter Rice took the torch, built up the independent side of the business at Fox and that led to A24, which led to a Neon. But I do think that there’s similarities to those films that were phenomenons then to what’s happening now.

DEADLINE: You have certainly worked on a lot of indie hits, but also huge studio juggernauts. Bond. James Bond comes to mind.

RICH: Yeah, it is a big part because it’s somewhat of a bookend. My first civilized studio lead job was at MGM after I left Miramax and I came in as the new president of Worldwide Marketing under Frank Mancuso. And Mancuso was brought in to revive the studio because Peretti had put it into bankruptcy and there had been seven years since the last James Bond movie. Credit Lyonnais had taken ownership of the studio and brought Mancuso in as the elder statesman to rebuild it so it could be sold. But the first thing that we had to do was not reboot, but revive the Bond franchise because the one before it hadn’t done well. And GoldenEye was going to be Pierce’s first turn as James Bond. And it was an important one because Cubby (Broccoli) was not well at the time. So it was the first bond installment that Barbara and Michael oversaw entirely.

So I was their new head of marketing and we spent a lot of time because we had to get it right. I think the age of the Bond fan we had discovered was much older because it had been some time since there had been a Bond movie and it was mission critical that we aged down the appeal of the James Bond movie to reach a younger demographic who perceived the Bond movie to be their father’s franchise. And so it was an important part of time and it brought back the Bond franchise and it poised it and positioned it for the future really well. But they made a hell of a movie. Martin Campbell was the director and again, that was their maiden voyage alone without Cubby’s involvement. And it was important because the future of the studio depended on the vitality of that franchise. And if that opening wasn’t successful globally, I think it really would’ve hit the overall value of the studio that would be put up for sale several years later.

DEADLINE: Iron Man was a pretty big deal too. It brought Marvel to the table in a big way.

RICH: That was a really interesting time, Pete, because when I first joined Paramount, Sherry Lansing was the head of the studio and (Tom) Freston then took the lead of Viacom and Brad Grey came in. And I’ve got a lot of Brad Grey stories you’ll see. It was a pretty tumultuous time at Paramount because there were a lot of heavy hitters or a lot of big … I’ll figure out a better way to say it. But one of the first things that Freston did was he bought Dreamworks. That was one of his first big acquisitions. He bought Dreamworks and what came along with Dreamworks was the company that David Geffen and Steven Spielberg ran, the live action Dreamworks company, but it also brought the distribution rights for Jeffrey’s (Katzenberg) animation company. And at the same time, we did a deal with Marvel. So we had Marvel under our roof. We had Dreamworks Live Action, Dreamworks Animation, Paramount, all under one roof. And this was the maiden voyage of Iron Man. This was the first movie that was self-financed by Marvel and to take kind of control of their own destiny. And so it was important to get that one right. Kevin Feige was the general who taught everybody all things Marvel and brought everybody into the Marvel universe and educated us and we worked so well together to launch that franchise and well beyond. That was the kickoff of the Marvel universe.

DEADLINE: This book is also a memoir. It is very much about you. Why did you decide to get personal rather than just do a straight business book?

RICH: Ever since I got to a senior position in the business, I’m inundated with kids coming to me and saying, ‘How do I do it? ‘ Taking courtesy meetings and interviews with friends, kids or a friend of a friend or what have you who are graduating and they come in and they say, ‘I want to get into the entertainment business.’ And I will then ask a series of questions. ‘Well, what is it you want to do?’ And they don’t know. And in a way, they’re expecting the interviewer to do the heavy lifting for them and figure it out for them.

And in a way, I wanted this to also be an inspirational story that if a kid from St. Louis who dreamed of something beyond their reach could do it, anybody can do it. I hope that resonates with certain audiences and that inspirational story, I really at a young age knew that I wanted a life that may not be obtainable and certainly one that wasn’t offered given where I grew up, and how I grew up, and how I really had to figure it out. And so I hope that that doesn’t disrupt from the storytelling of being inside Hollywood, but I think that journey I hope will resonate with certain people and show them that anything is possible if you put your mind to it, and this generation put your phone down and really commit to finding a path of something that will excite you, and work doesn’t have to be a negative adjective. It could be something fun and exciting and take you places you never could imagine going. So part of the story is really me ending up in these places, in these rooms, in these situations with these larger than life people that I can never imagine. And hopefully that comes across through my wide eyes because they still remain wide. I still get excited when I meet new filmmakers that I haven’t worked with before and see the process work or sit next to Steven Spielberg in a director’s chair. I still am curious. I still want to learn and I still want to be excited by new opportunities.

“Chasing Hollywood” can be pre-ordered here: https://www.harpercollinsleadership.com/books/chasing-hollywood