Barry Levinson Quotes

Hollywood was fine with fakes, but it was most definitely not okay with frauds.

Often, in the movie business, they need somebody who will garner box office because they need to pay for the movie. So the people who are in movies that make a lot of money are the people who most often get cast in studio pictures. In my career, I've never been a box office name.

Sometimes in entertainment, when people have done the Academy Awards - like, for example, in 'The Bodyguard' - I just didn't believe it; it didn't feel authentic.

My grandfather used to own a production company called Everlasting Pictures. I grew up with a lot of artistas and reporters and I'd always be starstruck.

I think no one really knows for sure what will work at the box office. Even big production houses don't know what will do well and what won't.

If you work with a big director, access to stars becomes easier.

People often trust low-res images because they look more real. But of course they are not more real, just easier to fake. [...] You never see a 10-megapixel photograph of Big Foot or the Abominable Snowman or the Loch Ness Monster.

I don't think you can name a good picture where the production or the possible promotion isn't "cast-contingent." That means the film needs not just star power but star box office power.

There are too many stars and too few actors.

There's a certain time in the core of making a movie from pre-production to halfway through post-production I don't read any project, my agent will tell people that "he's not reading." And then when I know how the movie's probably gonna work halfway into post-production, I'll come along.

A lot of people don't put the numbers together correctly. But Underworld, honestly, the way it came about - the real way it came about - I took a meeting with Dimension, and they were looking to do just a werewolf movie, and I wasn't too interested in doing just a werewolf movie.

I hope people will put aside Tom Ford the fashion designer and think about Tom Ford the filmmaker.

I had a great time working on the movies, both the major movies I've done. I've had a great time. I like the people in Hollywood a lot.

I make the joke, all the time, that if you have the word "man" and a number in the title, like Batman 2, Spider-Man 2 or Iron Man 12, you'll get it made. The kind of movies I make, studios don't make them. I've made a lot of movies, and at Castle Rock, we've made 125 movies. None of them get made at a studio. I've got to scrounge around for money, every time. I just like to tell stories. I'm a storyteller, so I want the most people to see it.

Do not be deceived by a man's eloquence; rather whoever fulfils trusts and refrains from impugning people's honour is a real man.

You’ll find that the movie business is paid for by those mega movies. The movie business is paid for by Big Macs. By movies as product. Movie studios use that term “product” all the time. Product? You mean you have a lot of stories? No, we have a lot of product. You have stories.

You're making a fantasy. You're making something real out of a fantasy. And then it no longer exists. It's heartbreaking to leave behind. I was devastated after Waiting for Guffman. I had never gotten so close to people I've worked with.

When you're being real, that's endearing to an audience. When you're not being real and you're making jumps to things that don't really follow how they would in reality, people don't appreciate that.

I was spending a lot of time in trailers, you know, on film sets surrounded by film people.

Getting any movie made is just like trying to push a giant boulder up a mountain, and there's so many moving parts. Obviously, there's the creative side, and then there's the logistical side, and they're both colossal.

Will there be titty? Sure. Boom! I'm a producer. Where you been all our life, boy? We been lookin for you in Hollywood.

The movie industry is full of crazy people who think that they are god.

I hear people talk in my head and I write it down. I choose where they live and how they dress to be real. That person wouldn't wear that. That person wouldn't say that. She can't afford to live like that. All that bullshit that so many movies have in them. I don't want to see that.

There are always tons of names on a movie of people that didn't actually do anything on that film. I feel bad for the people that busted their ass because they get the same credit as someone who did nothing. It's kind of a weird thing.

Of course you're nervous, but we're really excited to be able to share what we're going to share. And it's cool, because what we're going to be doing, I think for fans especially, we think is really cool, because part of the process that most people don't ever get to see [is] that before these movies are movies starring photo-real apes, they're movies starring the image of Andy Serkis and the other actors, who are playing apes.