A Quote by Doug Liman
I think of myself as making independent films within the studio system. Yes, I've made movies with significantly larger budgets, and I've also made movies with smaller budgets.
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Since Star Wars, that film's success led to bigger budgets, more hardware, that the great movies like the ones I did, which were studio movies, are now independent movies. They range from half a million to several million, and a lot of those have very interesting roles.
European films had art. And it was easy to make a European film. They didn't come from the studio system, they weren't shot in sound studios, and that's a good thing, because in the studio system those movies would never have had a chance. And since we were coming from Europe, it was natural for us to use that simple style. Small budgets, less equipment, that was just how it was.
Richard Donner made great movies. Seminal movies. The Academy, though, and we have to be careful here, should recognize popular films. Popular films are what make it all work. There was a time when popular movies were commercial movies, and they were good movies, and they had to be good movies. There was no segregation between good independent films and popular movies.
Independent films will probably kill themselves off by virtue of their own success. With a crossover hit like PULP FICTION, the criteria by which art-house movies are produced and marketed and exploited have changed. With studio money and overheads and budgets and deal-making machinery, a certain kind of narrative structure and popcorn-type payoff start infusing themselves.
The great movies that I want to do now are being made for $2.5-million budgets.
The problem for independent filmmakers is that huge companies control all the promotion, all the advertising. Hollywood films' advertising budgets are as large as their shooting budgets.
I wish I was making movies back in the days when John Ford made movies and you were a director under contract to a studio. John Ford had years when he made three movies in a year.
Obviously, when you get into larger budgets, you have less of that freedom, and I just - I'm not a person that tends to make stories for those larger budgets. To me, it's not much fun to have that kind of pressure.
I haven't done a lot of studio movies, but studio movies and independent films are always just as fun as each other.
Persistence is half the battle. That's what I love about independent movies. They don't have to be made. There's no studio with an agenda to set up a franchise like 'Batman' or to make a vehicle for a celebrity actor. My films are made because I love the process.
The kind of films I want to make are struggling to get made. And if they are getting made, they're getting made on shoestring budgets with not enough time.
Studio movies are looking more like independent movies and independent movies are looking more like studio movies, and I think cinema is better now because of it.
And yes, it is harder to make movies because budgets are getting smaller, and the companies stocks are down. The only good news on the horizon is that box office has been up by something like 23% from last year, which is great for us. It's still the cheapest form of entertainment.
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.
Well, honestly, the films I personally like to go see are smaller, more character-driven pieces, so that's why the movies I've made have been smaller, more character-driven movies.
I like to think I'm making films in the film business where movies are making enough numbers for the studios to let me keep working, but you also want those films to have content that makes you proud you made the film. That's not easy, but it's a fun puzzle to figure out.
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