A Quote by Jonathan Levine
I learned some big lessons on my first film, a horror film which was never released in the U.S., even though we sold it to Harvey Weinstein for a lot of money.
Related Quotes
They say now in America that final cut doesn't mean anything. As Harvey Weinstein said to some film-maker, 'You can have final cut. I'll open your film in Arkansas.'
Harvey Weinstein bought our film, and he's an animal. He's got us out there campaigning and everything because honestly it's a silent black-and-white film.
The film you know as 'Super Troopers' is a film that almost didn't happen. The script was originally commissioned and developed by Miramax, but when it failed to get a green light, Harvey Weinstein was kind enough to give it back to us so we could make it elsewhere.
With The Exorcist we said what we wanted to say. Neither one of us view it as a horror film. We view it as a film about the mysteries of faith. It's easier for people to call it a horror film. Or a great horror film. Or the greatest horror film ever made. Whenever I see that, I feel a great distance from it.
'Hereditary' is unabashedly a horror film. In a lot of ways, it's in dialogue with other horror films. But I do know that it was important for me that the film functioned first as a family drama. I know that I'm never affected by anything if I'm not invested in the people to whom the genre things are happening.
I'd say the film to avoid is a director's second film, particularly if his first film was a big success. The second film is where you've really needed to have learned something.
My first film was a super-hit. It made the producer earn a lot of money and gave me a lot of fame. The funny part is that I acted in Tum Bin' as a project for which I was paid a stipend and not the money that comes to the star of a very popular film.
I've always had a fascination for everything surrounding things that are unexplainable. Not surprising that my first movie was a horror film, even though, of course, at the time I had no experience writing horror music.
I am big on - even with our whole team - it's always about, well, what were the lessons learned? Something didn't work out? What are the lessons learned? What are the lessons learned?
Look at 'Dulhe Raja.' It was a film made very quietly on the sidelines, and suddenly, when the film was released, it struck gold. I never expected the film to do well.
The things I have sold to film, I've sold because I was happy to rent out the right to adapt those works. Some things, I haven't sold to film, because I was less interested in having no control over the adaptation.
If one horror film hits, everyone says, 'Let's go make a horror film.' It's the genre that never dies.
I booked a horror film called 'Where the Devil Hides.' It's... you know, a horror film. But it was the first full-length movie I'd ever done, and it got me my visa, and I could start work.
As I got into the animation, as I learned more about the business, I learned that you need a lot of people to do anything animated - even a short, let alone a feature film. And you need a lot of money.
When horror turns into gore, when you show the monster, the killings, and the blood, it loses its suggestive powers. It loses part of what makes a horror film a horror film, which is that the images you see develop in your brain and you become the one imagining what you are not seeing on screen.
When I sit down to write, I don't think, 'OK, what is the next David O. Russell film I can write, or what is Harvey Weinstein going to want to buy?' Or even, 'What are filmgoers going to want.' I try to think, tell a good story. Just do what you do.
Related Authors
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Quotes
Mexican
Director
Ava DuVernay Quotes
American
Director
David Lynch Quotes
American
Director
George Lucas Quotes
American
Director
Guillermo del Toro Quotes
Mexican
Director
John Waters Quotes
American
Director
Judd Apatow Quotes
American
Director
Martin Scorsese Quotes
American
Director
Nicolas Winding Refn Quotes
Danish
Director
Oliver Stone Quotes
American
Director
Peter Jackson Quotes
New Zealander
Director
Quentin Tarantino Quotes
American
Director
Ridley Scott Quotes
British
Director
Steven Spielberg Quotes
American
Director
Werner Herzog Quotes
German
Director
Woody Allen Quotes
American
Director