I have a way of filming things and staging them and designing sets. There were times when I thought I should change my approach, but in fact, this is what I like to do. It's sort of like my handwriting as a movie director. And somewhere along the way, I think I've made the decision: I'm going to write in my own handwriting.
As opposed to a movie [Real Steel] where everything feels fantastical, it was really important to me, and I recognise it's not the first movie with robots in it, but that blend of naturalism in performance, writing and design with the futurism of this sport. That was the idea.
Really I'm a fan of any movie, whether it's suspense, action, or comedy, anything that has a good story.
I was never strategic really, but back when I was starting out no one cared. In the acting community, box office didn't matter. I really think it was a mistake when they started paying people like $20 million to do a movie because now it's all people think about. Is she worth it? Is he worth it?
Hollywood's a business, and until someone puts their finger on you and decides you're the guy who's going to carry that movie, it's not going to happen.
I'm not really that sick of Evil Dead. I can trace all roots back to The Evil Dead movies, so I have nothing against them. It's just that I've done more non-Evil Dead stuff; it's not the only thing I've done. There are some actors who have done a cult movie and they are forever going to be the Policeman #2 in Plan 9 From Outer Space.
I just want to be able to make a movie that takes some chances. I don't just want to do something that is purely stuck in a genre box.
Audiences will get just as tired of people wrestling on a bed as they did of Tom Mix kissing his horse.
The movie, by sheer speeding up of the mechanical, carried us from the world of sequence and connections into the world of creative configurations and structure.
My favorite movie is 'The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Legally Blonde was something that I just knew was going to make Reese Witherspoon the biggest star in the world. I knew - seeing Reese handle that with such intelligent ditziness - and she'd just had her baby and she looked fabulous and she's such a hard worker. I just knew. I remember doing press for that movie and Reese was already exhausted, but someone that would never say they were exhausted because she's that much of a professional.
I learn from every movie I do because on every movie I have a different experience.
Certain actors wanna get paid, they think working in a low-budget movie is being ripped off. But for others it's like, 'Yes, let's do it. '
You're gonna need a bigger boat.
I never had a movie that I wanted to do turned down in my whole life. I always write the script first so it speaks for itself.
If somebody is smoking a joint in a movie, I say it's a cigarette - a big cigarette if it's a Cheech and Chong movie.
I wasn't going to have fun doing a teen movie again.
If I was one of the leaders. . . if I was just a leader of one of these studios what I would do is I would go to all my cohorts who run other studios and say let's make a deal. Let's each of us make three 3D movies a year or whatever the number is. Let's not take every movie and make it a 3D movie. Let's take our three tentpoles or whatever movie it is so you have a specialness to it.
Here it is at last, the first 150-minute trailer. Armageddon is cut together like its own highlights. Take almost any 30 seconds at random, and you'd have a TV ad. The movie is an assault on the eyes, the ears, the brain, common sense, and the human desire to be entertained. No matter what they're charging to get in, it's worth more to get out.
Sometimes you do things for personal reasons. I made a very personal movie in We Are Marshall. I was afraid of flying, for a long time, and that's a movie about a plane crash.
