The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982

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"Hollywood boldly went where it hadn't gone before and Nashawaty chronicles the journeys." -Los Angeles Times ("Books You Need To Read This Summer") "Written with a fan's enthusiasm . . . An important inflection point in Hollywood filmmaking." -New York Times ("Nonfiction Books to Read This Summer") In the summer of 1982, eight science fiction films were released within six weeks of one another. E.T., Tron, Star Trek: Wrath of Khan, Conan the Barbarian, Blade Runner, Poltergeist, The Thing, and Mad Max: The Road Warrior changed the careers of some of Hollywood's now biggest names-altering the art of movie-making to this day. In The Future Was Now, Chris Nashawaty recounts the riotous genesis of these films, featuring an all-star cast of Hollywood luminaries and gadflies alike: Steven Spielberg, at the height of his powers, conceives E.T. as an unlikely family tale, and quietly takes over the troubled production of Poltergeist, a horror film he had been nurturing for years. Ridley Scott, fresh off the ...