To go indie is a thing. But to put an album in the stores, you need a distribution label.
When you work in film, you learn to appreciate a distributor. You can have this great little film, but if you don't have a distributor, you are sitting in your living room with a great little film.
Basically, the big studios and companies distributing your movie just take a big cut of profit for making posters.
When we do a movie with the studios, they wouldn't be asking us to do it, I don't think, if it was a movie they wanted to get into themselves. What you see is what you get with us, so they let us do what we want to do.
The original deal we made was that Walker would be treated like a regular movie, rather than an arthouse thing.
In television, things move quite slowly. It can take years to get a show off the ground.
If you're an artist trying to put out your own record on your own label, it's hard to get a distribution deal because no one wants to sign a deal with one entity. They want to sign distribution deals with labels, who have lots of product, lots of artists.
It's easy to get a theatrical release that shows in one theater for a week. But there's no advertising, and no one sees the movie. It's hard to get a real theatrical release. The distribution of independent films is, to me, extraordinarily frustrating.
The idea of being associated with Bollywood prompted me to get into DVD distribution.
'Brothers McMullen' would not be picked up for theatrical distribution now.
With 'House Party 4,' I did it with my own money, and I sold it to New Line.
I had originally done a production called 'The Resistance.' It was one of those underground guerilla things, very low budget. Then Starz and Ghost House ended up picking it up and funding it, and we reshot it.
I've been fortunate enough to match up the material I'm producing with the right buyer, the company that will make it and that wants it, and that isn't saying yes to be nice, but is saying yes because they want and need that movie and it's going to be important on their slate.
