I adore Tom Hanks and I can really feel his voice in this book. The subject and the characters were just not that captivating to me, perhaps for more of a movie buff this would be perfect!

I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would. It provides insight into everything that goes into making a movie, all the way from influences in the life of the creator of the source material, to seeing the final cut on the big screen. All through a cast of well-developed characters.

I absolutely loved this book!! I couldn’t put it down.
I just loved all the characters. I highly recommend this book.

I had no idea what I was getting into with this book, but as a Tom Hanks fan, I had to give it a try. And what a delight it was! I loved the insider view of making motion pictures. I really enjoyed how we got all of the major players back stories and could clearly see how their lives were touched by being a part of this film. I thought the inclusion of comics was an excellent choice. Once I really got into it, I just couldn't put it down.

An interesting read for anyone wanting to know more about the time and energy that goes into creating a film. A long novel that was broken into a few parts that can seem a little disjointed until later in the book. The majority of the book is about the day-to-day filming of the movie that flips between reading like a novel (or script) with solid characters and amusing interactions / dialogue and then sections of detailed information on what is happening on the set that read more like a memoir / non-fiction book. There were lots of great sections and then a few that broke up the reading flow and had me thinking I had switched books. A solid 3/5⭐️ and a good fit if you are a film buff.

💕You might like this book if:
🔹 you just want to see what Tom Hanks is writing about
🔹 you’ve always wondered what it’s like to be on a film set
🔹 you like when you can picture a book as a movie adaption
🔹 you like comic books / graphic novels

“From the Academy Award-winning actor and best-selling author: a novel about the making of a star-studded, multimillion-dollar superhero action film . . . and the humble comic books that inspired it.“

I wasn’t sure how I’d like this one. I mean, I love TOM HANKS, but career crossovers don’t always work out.

This book was pretty solid, though.

I enjoyed the characters (particularly OKB – who doesn’t love a well-written jackass?) the settings (I’ll likely never set foot in LA, so that was fun), and I loved the two story arcs.

I DID find the book a tad on the long side, and the two stories took awhile to converge, but the audiobook (I read with both my eyeballs and my ear holes) was A DELIGHT.

That in itself was worth the price of admission.

I’ll definitely be checking out any future fiction from my favourite Sheriff.

7.5/10

Thanks to NetGalley, Knopf, and Penguin Random House Canada for this ARC.

I love movies - romantic comedies, animated features, action, or thrillers: I’ll watch them all. Getting lost in a different world for a couple of hours is just as great as escapism as reading books (although I still prefer reading books before watching the film adaptations).

In the novel by Tom Hanks we follow the long process of how another Major Motion Movie Masterpiece is being made. We start at the very beginning, with the story that later inspired the movie around which the whole book revolves.
We meet lots of characters, both minor and major, with extensive backstories. Really, every character is well fleshed out. Although it makes the book quite a bit longer, I did not mind the backstories too much, as it later just flowed with the story.
At the end of the book, it all comes together nicely and I really got a sense of what it takes to make a movie.
It is not so much about the actual shooting days, but about all the prep and post work. It is about the people on set and the friendships made along the way.
And it is about the audience, the ones finding themselves on the screen and escaping the real world for a little while.

The Making Of Another Major Motion Picture Masterpiece by Tom Hanks was published on May 9, 2023. You can purchase a copy here.

Thank you so much to NetGalley, Tom Hanks, and Penguin Random House for the copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

I wanted to love this book because of how much I love Tom Hanks. I was gently reminded that acting and writing are not the same craft. I found The Making of Another Major Motion Picture by Tom Hanks jumped around in the beginning and gave too much precursor information before getting to the meat-and-potatoes of the story.

The story follows a film director and his crew as they film the next big hit superhero movie. The filming takes place in the small town of Lone Butte, California, and the story strives to enlighten readers that the making of a movie is a creative, unpredictable, and chaotic experience.

Hanks has a pleasant, upbeat tone to his writing yet while I appreciate well-written and complex characters, it seemed as if every character in this story was given a full backstory. As someone with a writing background (journalism school was my formal training), I found the number of run-on sentences to be annoying. I almost took out my red pen but then remembered I was reading a digital copy.

There were also an obscene number of footnotes, in my humble opinion. If it were a work of non-fiction I would understand, but this is general fiction Mr. Hanks and I found the footnotes to disrupt the flow of the story. The editor needed to hear the wise words I was given before interviewing my first notable: everybody poops. This book read like the editor was afraid, to be honest and give constructive criticisms, or that they were given yet ignored.

Thank you to Netgalley, Penguin Random House Canada, and Knopf Canada for an eARC in exchange for my honest review!

I really appreciate NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada giving me an ARC of this book. Unfortunately, it really isn’t one of my favourites. I found there were just too many characters and too much going on. I also felt the story was too much of a slow burn for me.

Tom Hanks is used to making movies and this felt like he was trying to make a movie and not a book. It was just too much.

I did enjoy the comics though. 2.5 stars.

I skimmed the eBook, and after seeing the finished copy on shelves, I KNOW I need to buy it and take it in really slowly! The artwork!!

I love Tom Hanks, I love his narrative voice, I love his love of history, and will gladly buy a copy of this book for myself just to have the finished copy displayed on my shelves!

Thank you, NetGalley, for the opportunity to review this book. I found it to be a quietly exquisite story. It was endearing that a character is named Nora. From the unique format to the comics' whimsy of its time, the journey to a movie being made was engaging.

If there were any actor in the biz I’d want to write a book like this, I’d choose Tom Hanks. His expertise, knowledge, and wisdom shine through every facet of the story of THE MAKING OF ANOTHER MAJOR MOTION PICTURE MASTERPIECE.

This one started out slowly, with painstaking detail about everything. Hanks provided extraordinary depth to each character, and it reminded me a little of reading a character backstory (perhaps a little like an actor might create for a role, say). It took a little while for the plot to get going, but once it did, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing how all of the pieces fit together. It’s a book to stick with, if you ask me.

You can see Hanks’ love of history writ large across these pages (and also in the full colour comics within the book); as a history major myself, I connected with these aspects of the book. I had to wonder if the characters were based off of, or amalgamations of, people he’s worked with in his industry. If so….👀👀👀. The egos!

Ultimately, I think he really aimed to shed a light on what making movies is all about - the many moving parts, the commitment, the sheer manpower, and the different forces that act upon the entire process. It’s an absolute love letter to movie making. And Hanks’ is the preeminent voice (at least in my very biased eyes).

I also highly recommend listening to the CBC Q podcast interview with Tom Power in conversation with Hanks as he delves deeper into his motivations and process for this book.

Anyway, I love Tom on another level that probably isn’t healthy, so hearing his narrative voice (which is the book’s biggest strength) in the pages of this story was an experience I was honoured to have.

I am deeply grateful to Penguin Random House Canada for sending me a finished copy of this, my most anticipated and deeply treasured book.

I love you, Tom! Please write more!

“Every character in the book does something I’ve experienced while making a movie, as well as discovered a philosophy or learnt an important lesson,” the Academy Award-winning actor, 66, told People last fall when he announced his debut novel. Naturally, it’s set primarily in Hollywood, and spans about 75 years, beginning in 1947 up to the making (during COVID-19) of a superhero movie by an acclaimed Spielberg/Zemeckis-type filmmaker. The long title gives you some idea of his meandering but good-natured yarn: there’s extensive backstory on all the production’s key players (from the director and his personal assistant to the cartoonist’s own childhood inspiration—his Second World War-veteran uncle). It’s all interspersed with pages of the fictional war comics that inspire the movie, illustrated in pitch-perfect period style by R. Sikoryak. It’ll be a crowd-pleaser.
(Delighted to include this title in the May edition of Novel Encounters, my regular column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national culture magazine.)