A Quote by Lee Daniels
I've never done a studio movie, let alone worked for a network. Every one of my films has been independently financed.
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I'm considered to some degree a successful director working in Hollywood, making films my way but using studio financing. But with almost every single one, I get praised up the wazoo by people who never would have financed the films. It's: "Gee, this movie is so new and different - what do you want to do next?" "This." "Oh, that's too new and different."
There's not one film that I've ever made that could get made today by a studio, not one - even 'A Few Good Men' because it's an adult courtroom drama, and studios do not make them any more. And so every movie that I make, have made and will make is always going be independently financed.
There are wonderful films that become studio films, but they're conceived independently. That's where the action is. 'Being John Malkovich' is a great example of a picture you wouldn't think the studios would want, and it turns out to be a movie that touches everybody's heart.
I like how steady the work in television is. Films, they're hard to come by. They're elusive. I've done a couple, independently financed. You do them, and maybe a few people will see them.
When I tried to get 'Stargate' made, I took it to every studio in Hollywood and every studio said, 'Sci-fi is dead. It's a dead genre. No one wants to see science fiction anymore.' And I had to go and raise the money independently to make that movie.
There's big studio films I didn't want to do. I didn't want to go through the hoops and ladders. I wouldn't have been able to work with the directors I've worked with if I did those studio films.
You've got these big studio films and these tiny independent films now. It's very much either/or. With the independent films, it's always a beautiful risk - it might never be seen. With the studio films, you're conforming to the formula of what's always been in place.
I financed and made my own films from the start. My path has been autonomous and independent, so I don't have any horror stories about glass ceilings and expectations and tense studio meetings.
Many films you see in theaters are financed through outside sources. With big films, the studio will pay, hoping to reap the reward of their big bet. But with medium and small-sized films, outside production companies and financiers often foot the bill.
Every movie that I've done, they don't stand independently from one another because a little bit of me is in every single one of those, and it's part of my own personal growth.
I've done big studio films and the big studio films I've done, I've tried to do the interesting ones and the ones where I could live with myself in the morning.
We have heard projects with some of the writers, who we've been in business with for a long time at the studio, that we've heard as a studio - often, pitches that are still in their formation stage where we or the writers have wanted our input on developing them. We've probably heard more pitches with the network hat on. Certainly all of the outside pitches are that way, and many of the pitches that have been in great shape coming out of the studio we've heard from a network perspective.
There was no studio involved when we made 'Stargate.' It was financed through Le Studio Canal+ in France and, after the film was finished, it was sold to MGM. When the film was a success, MGM decided to do a television series based on the movie.
Good female parts are hard to come by, so I go all over the place to find them: cable TV, network movies of the week, foreign films, independent American films, studio films, the stage.
I've never been to anywhere in Africa except Egypt. We've never performed there, so I would definitely like to make that trip, probably to South Africa. I'd also like to score a movie from top to bottom. I've had songs in a bunch of films but never done an entire movie. I'd like to do that and have it to be a hit, too!
The real difficulty for smaller films, when they're made independently and it's time to go for a distributor, sometimes if it's a tough film and the people who financed it need their money back right away, it's much easier and lucrative to take a DVD deal.
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