A Quote by Matt Stone

It's the business of movies, it's the fights that go along with the level of budget, and more than anything, it's the creative constipation of having to live with one idea for two or three years. It's just not that fun.
For me, collaborating is a marriage of the minds. It's two or more people coming together and making an idea come alive. Using their own creative knowledge or creative spirit to make the best version of an idea. To inspire an idea and to challenge it to be better than just one person's vision for it.
Life is short. I'm years old. I've got years to go where I can be the best I can be. I want those years to be precious, not like before, cranking two or three movies a year. I've made a ton of movies in my life, but so what?
I have been very busy having so many fights since I turned pro. To have 13 in little more than two years is a lot by modern standards.
Fun is at the core of the way I like to do business and it has been key to everything I've done from the outset. More than any other element, fun is the secret of Virgin's success. I am aware that the ideas of business as being fun and creative goes right against the grain of convention, and it's certainly not how the they teach it at some of those business schools, where business means hard grind and lots of 'discounted cash flows' and net' present values'.
If I read a script and the subject stays with me - then that's when I want to go to work. Before, I was very addicted to being on set, and I was doing three or four movies a year for many years. Now, fortunately, I can go to work only when I am passionate about a project, and the rest of the time, I can live my life. I'm not interested in doing movies just as a marathon. When I go to work now, I have much more to give. But the other way, you get empty.
When you raise the budget, you make creative compromises. The higher the budget goes, the more cuts in your movie happen. When people talk about how movies are watered down, that's a direct reflection of money and budget. The less money you spend; the more risks you can take. That doesn't mean it will be successful, but at least you can try different stuff. The higher your budget is, the less you can do that.
Life is short. I'm 47 years old. I've got 10 years to go where I can be the best I can be. I want those 10 years to be precious, not like before, cranking two or three movies a year. I've made a ton of movies in my life, but so what?
I enjoy fights the most once them nerves go away and you settle into the fight. That's when you can have your fun and be creative and just kind of be yourself.
What naturally stops you making the film is there is no more money in the budget. That's really what it is. If you had an unlimited budget, if you were a billionaire and you financed your own movies, then you can either date, because you can sit in an editing room for six years, like Howard Hughes, and never finish anything.
Some of my favorite movies are just movies that are just good stories, and aren't necessarily big budget movies or anything.
The early years of Hanna-Barbera were more fun than the later ones. I was working more in the creative areas of timing and direction then. But as the studio grew, I became more involved in administration and got away from the creative aspects.
The bigger the budget, the more you can afford to compromise with Mother Nature. The smaller the budget, the more you're like, "Okay, well, we have to do this, but how can we afford to do it." That's when you have to get really creative on the business side, as far as making compromises.
You just realize at the end of the day, everyone is going to have their opinion on your life, more and more so as you go along. As long as you're getting to work and be a part of it - still having fun, learn to just not sweat it so much and keep doing the things you love.
If you just don't have any idea what you want to do, the worst thing you can do is go to law school. If you can go to college, maybe it's fine to have four years of fun and learn a little bit, that's okay, but if you have to go two hundred thousand dollars in debt, that's not something I would recommend.
You're better off owning 30 percent and having two amazing partners who compliment you and are equally as driven as you are than having 100 percent and only having one aspect of it, unless you're a super genius who is creative and business-minded at the same time.
Occasionally I'll be a producer for hire on a larger budget movie, but with Blumhouse Pictures, we mainly focus on micro-budget, under-$5-million-dollar movies. That's what we're in business to do, and that's what we're in business to make.
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