Movies don't sit in the theaters for an entire summer like they did in 1982. Now you've got a two- or three-week shelf life so you need to have that awareness right off the bat. And in order to make a lot of people know about your movie, you need to be out there banging the drum and showing your stuff.
I'm just trying to think what other sequels there were. There was the James Bond movies and not many. I think sequels have become a recent idea of franchising.
You have no idea, especially in green screen, what movie you're doing. You really don't. And then, you see the movie and you're like, "Oh, my god, I'm on a cliff right now! I'm having sex right now! I thought I was dancing."
The budgets are much higher now, it costs more to make a movie and the kids that go to see them are into instant gratification. They want things bigger and bigger. I don't make those kind of movies. I make movies about relationships.
Harry [Shearer] and I had an idea to do a movie about rock 'n' roll from the roadies' perspective, from backstage. Then Meat Loaf came out with a movie called Roadie and we thought, "Oh, we can't do that now." So we kind of discarded the idea.
A lot of the things I was doing on YouTube nobody was doing at the time, and now everybody is doing them, and I think making movies - I know a few Youtubers have done it, and hopefully this movie does well and more YouTubers want to take a risk and make movies, and I'm excited about it.
The summer before I went to culinary school, my family wanted me to take a job on a movie to make sure that I was making the right decision. I think they hoped I would change my mind about culinary school.
I love the idea of making movies that kids and adults can go to together and both get something out of it, and not just, 'Oh, I've got to take my kid to the movie because they want to see the next, you know, 'Hannah Montana' movie or whatever.'
I think we make the movies, initially, with the one movie in mind. But we do love the characters, and so we kind of miss the characters when the movie is over. But I think what happens is, every now and then you realize there's more to tell, or an idea comes up.
Making a movie is so hard, you'd better make movies about something you really know about. And even more, it's really good to make movies about things you need to figure out for yourself, so you're driven the whole way through. It's going to make things more crucial for you.
I don't want to go to just watch big huge summer movies that everybody predicts is going to be the big huge summer movie and that are all the sort of blow-them-up movies or whatever you want to call them. I think there are a lot of other people out there, too, that want an alternative.
A good movie can take you out of your dull funk and the hopelessness that so often goes with slipping into a theatre; a good movie can make you feel alive again, in contact, not just lost in another city. Good movies make you care, make you believe in possibilities again.
with all these tentpoles, franchises, reboots and sequels, is there still room for movies in the movie business?
I was never a critic. I was a journalist and wrote about filmmakers, but I didn't review movies per se. I make that distinction only because I came to it strictly as someone who was just a lover of storytellers and cinematic storytellers. And I still am. I'm still a great movie fan, and I ,that love of movies is very much alive in me. I approach the movies I make as a movie-lover as much as a movie-maker.
My problem is I don't see and hear that well, so when I go to the movies, I can make out what's going on, but I can't hear what they're saying. And after the movie, I have to ask whoever I'm with "now, what was that all about?"
The thing I do miss about the way some sequels were in the past was that each film felt like its own unique, complete tone. Now, sequels are tonal facsimiles of the ones before them, like a television series, whereas back in the past sequels would often be radically different from the ones before.