The Men Who Would Be King:
An Almost Epic Tale of Moguls, Movies,
and a Company Called DreamWorks
By Nicole LaPorte
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 512 pp; $28
The Men Who Would Be King is a jarring title, but it is entirely appropriate for Nicole LaPorte's exhaustive history of DreamWorks SKG. The Hollywood studio with towering multimedia ambitions was founded in 1994 by three of the entertainment business' most respected—and feared—power players. Director Steven Spielberg, jilted Disney (DIS) executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, and mogul David Geffen were already royalty when they decided to form the company. This book explores why these monarchs tried to become emperors, and how they almost did.
