An Inadvertent Paean to Jerry Bruckheimer, From the Studio That Ousted Him LOS ANGELES - It's not just a matter of size, though a new coffee-table retrospective of Jerry Bruckheimer's film and television career - "Jerry Bruckheimer: When Lightning Strikes, Four Decades of Filmmaking" - certainly has heft. The large-format photo book has 304 pages, each measuring about a foot and a half across the top. The tome weighs as much as a reasonably healthy newborn baby. That would be a full seven pounds, according to a scale. Impressive, too, are the brilliant images, many of them shot by Mr. Bruckheimer himself on the sets of movies he produced like the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series, "Pearl Harbor" and "Blackhawk Down." Those films, and more, are testimony to the vision and tenacity of Mr. Bruckheimer, who is pictured, on page 30, as a child in suspenders and short pants, pedaling a tricycle along the sidewalks of his native Detroit. But the real achievement of Mr. Bruckheimer's book, which is priced at $43.24 on Amazon and set for publication on Dec. 17, is almost certainly its delicious timing. Published by Disney Editions, the Bruckheimer retrospective comes just three months after the Walt Disney Company and Mr. Bruckheimer agreed to end a longstanding deal, under which his film company had supplied films to Disney since the early 1990s. Though Mr. Bruckheimer, 70, may still make occasional movies for Disney, he has been shopping for a new home, and recent reports have put Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers at the forefront of those vying for his attention. Asked about his plans last week, Mr. Bruckheimer declined to comment. Clearly, the Disney-published book was mostly done before the split. A foreword by Johnny Depp, written in September 2012, noted that things had not always been sunshine and roses with what he called a "peanut gallery" of Disney executives, some of whom did not initially understand his Jack Sparrow character, from the "Pirates of the Caribbean." Mr. Depp recalled hearing "cerebral nuggets" like "Is he drunk?" and "Is he gay?" from executives who wanted him out of the first picture in the series. But, as the book's writer, Michael Singer, points out, Mr. Bruckheimer's films - never mind "The Lone Ranger," which flopped last July - have racked up more than $13 billion in global ticket sales. "He has done it by showing that commercial entertainment can be big and brawny, but not entirely brainless," Mr. Singer writes. Mr. Bruckheimer's prospective new partners can look it up. It's right there on page 26 of Disney's seven-pound tribute to its former favorite producer, out in stores next month.