A Quote by Billy Bob Thornton
Independent films now, they want to give you $2 million to make it, 21 days to shoot it and they want 10 movie stars in it.
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I'm not particularly interested in working with movie stars. It depends on where you come from, I suppose. Why are you making films? The reason I want make films is because they convey ideas. I think some directors make films because they want to hang out with movie stars and be part of Hollywood. They want to be a star themselves.
The movie studios, they only like to make - I make a joke, but it's true - if the movie has the word "man" and a number in the title, they'll make it. If it doesn't have that, it's an R-rated raunchy comedy, and that's it. Any other movie that you're going to make is going to be an independent one. So for filmmakers who want to do something other than "man" and a number, it's either independent films or television, which is like the place for real creative filmmakers to go.
I think to do a proper independent movie, in my experience, it takes 22 or 23 days to shoot. That was 'Party Girl' or 'House of Yes.' But now with the digital camera, the budgets have gotten smaller, and the days have gotten shorter.
The way financing for independent movies goes is great. You get the money from the guy who's actually doing the distribution in France. You say, "Do you want a piece of this movie?" And he's got to sell this movie to get his money back. That's the brains of it; that's the genius of this financing. "You want Germany? Give us a million dollars and you've got Germany."
They do think it is a big summer movie and that's why they want to give it a great chance, but they don't want to go up against Spider-Man 2 or some of the other big movies, the $100 million films that are coming up.
Maybe I'll just write books. I'd like to make another movie, but I don't want to go back and [do] what they want you to do, to make it for a million dollars. I did that. I don't need a lot, but I need what I used to get, and they don't give you that anymore.
I generally go into a movie with a very strong vision, with how I want to make the film, how I want to shoot the film, how I want to edit the movie, what I want the sound to sound like. So I have a very concrete idea even if I don't storyboard it, I know exactly what I want to do once I get into the sequence. Now having said that, I try not to let that slave me to the process. So if I do storyboard a sequence I don't necessarily stick to it if I discover more exciting things on set.
People call me a movie star. If you're in the business, a movie star is someone who can make a film bankable. My name and $6 million will make a $6 million movie. I'm a working actor. Because I started late, I had a very short run as a leading man, and my films didn't make money in America.
I can't always be making "British films". Why should we be making films about corsets and horses and girls learning to drive when Americans send over an event movie and make five or 10 million?
I can't always be making 'British films.' Why should we be making films about corsets and horses and girls learning to drive when Americans send over an event movie and make five or 10 million?
When you shoot an independent movie you have a very limited amount of time, and you don't want to be that actor, when a poor director is trying to get through a movie, that you're asking at every second to discuss performance.
I'm going to continue doing what I want to do. And if it means I want to go and make a big movie, if it has something to say, I will want to make it. I don't want to spend my life wasting my time. If it's a big movie, I want to do it. If it's a small movie, I want to do it.
Today, they make films where you have to sit for an hour and a half and watch somebody in the process of dying and, for me, that's rather depressing. Films, in the good old days of the golden age of Hollywood, used to want to inspire people and give them uplift. You're paying good money to see a film, and you don't want to leave depressed!
I love the intimacy and the passion and the danger that go into independent filmmaking. Because it comes out of a creative necessity. It comes from people who really want to make a movie and want to make a difference and want to grab an audience by the gullet and show them something different.
They all want you to make a movie for under a million dollars, which I don't want to. I don't want to be a faux radical film-maker at 70. I did that. I don't need to do it again.
With an independent movie, it's like, 'Okay I know what I want, and I got to go for it.' I just got to get the A version of this. Occasionally we'll try a B version, but not often. We'll just get what's scripted and try to do that as best we can, so you sort of edit while you shoot an independent movie.
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