I just think that sports movies have such a built-in visceral, rooting interest, an epic win or lose redemptive quality. When they get it right, it can make for a really rousing movie experience.
I think sometimes, when you're on top and all you do is win, win, win, win, win, you get lazy and lose focus. When you lose it opens your eyes and you get serious. There is always a time when it is good to lose, at the right time for you.
I want to make movies - and I want to portray characters - that make people think. I want to make movies that have a redemptive message. I want to tell good quality stories and take out the derogatory sex, violence and language.
I aim my movies, as much as I can, at myself. I think that those movies have an interesting quality. They're very movieish. They are movie movies. Like I think Watchmen is a very self-aware movie. 300. Dawn of the Dead definitely. That's really where I've ended up.
When a sports movie really works, it gets you on all levels, because the stakes are high. It's black and white. It's win or lose.
It's funny, you can get over the win pretty quick and get ready for the next opponent. When you lose, it just eats at you.... What could we have done? What should I have done? All those things. Just part of playing professional sports and sports in general.
The cardinal sin in sports, what could really wreck it, is not cheating to win, which has gone on forever, but cheating to lose. That threatens a fundamental aspect of sports' appeal, which is their spontaneity. If games are fixed, they're no different from movies; they're scripted.
What we have here is a rousing boy's adventure story, adapted from stories that Edgar Rice Burroughs cranked out for early pulp magazines. They lacked the visceral appeal of his Tarzan stories, which inspired an estimated 89 movies; amazingly, this is the first John Carter movie, but it is intended to foster a franchise and will probably succeed.
This is sports. In sports, you win and you lose. That's the nature of sports. You can't get away from that part of it. And if you get too hung up on the losing part, then you miss the boat. The competition part, a game like that, is why you play sports. That is as good as it gets.
I've ended up as a filmmaker who really loves the movie part of movies. That time in my life was a big influence on the kind of movies that I ended up making. I always think I'm going to make a movie that's gritty and real, but then I make a movie that's like an opera. I fight it at first and then that's just the way it is.
I just went to Times Square and the underground movies, sometimes three a day. I did get my education. But I really believed then, in 1966, they would not have allowed me to make any of the movies I made. Today, you could make a snuff movie at NYU and get an A.
What I think is really great about this movie [42], that young people who weren't there will have a chance to have the visceral experience of what Jackie Robinson went through.
I think all it really takes for different people to get along is a common rooting interest and a few beers.
I hear a lot of, "We want to make a movie with you." Then "No, we don't want to make this one. We want to make that other movie with you." I don't really get that and it's very frustrating. It angers me. Because my movies are my movies.
I don't really like those sorts of actresses who say, 'I don't want to make that movie,' but they make the movie. They just spend their time not liking being on a set and I just think it's absurd, because we are so lucky to do this job. When you accept to make a movie, just make the movie. And then it's more easy for relationships.
Everyone in the movie industry wants to win an Oscar. I don't think that's why you make movies. But winning an Oscar is not just about making a great movie, unfortunately. It's also having a good Oscar campaign.
I like movies that interest me and stories that interest me, I don't think about how much money it's gonna [cost] to make the movie, I don't think about any of that. I think about certain aspects like who's making the movie and who's gonna tell a story that I wanna be involved in, but I don't have that choice and I never have.