Executive Interference Quotes

Most films I work on, the people making the film are constantly second-guessing the executives of the studio, the producer, and the audience. It is very hard to accomplish anything in that situation.

Nowadays, if a studio assumes that his film is bad, there is always an executive that gets more nervous than usual and thinks that if they change the music, the film will become a masterpiece.

For too long, Paul LePage tried to stand in the way of getting things done in Maine.

When we were at MGM, we never did much about merchandise tie-ups There were too many executives and lawyers to go through.

The truth is, the whole administration under Roosevelt was demoralized by the system of dealing directly with subordinates. It wasobviated in the State Department and the War Department under [Secretary of State Elihu] Root and me [Taft was the Secretary of War], because we simply ignored the interference and went on as we chose.... The subordinates gained nothing by his assumption of authority, but it was not so in the other departments.

I'm a playwright by trade, and in theater, writers have complete control over everything. Nobody can change a word without your permission. I've had a couple screenwriting experiences that weren't terrible, but they were typical, where executives came in and gave you sometimes good notes and sometimes horrible notes - but they wanted to change the movie that everybody had agreed to make. After a couple of times, it's like, "Why are we doing this?" The story is not going to turn out very good when 13 people are writing it together.

The difficult notes are when they say, "And this is how we want you to fix it . . ." Just tell me what the problem is. Just tell me what the issue is, and I'll go off an fix it. It's usually when executives get to a place where they're trying to fix the problem for you that you have issues

I don't like to deal with studios. I don't like to have conversations with executives. I pitch to the studio, then never talk to them until the test screening.