Film Development Quotes

I think it's important to say typing in the computer is like the last, last phase of my writing process. That's kind of the fun part. Well, it's all somewhat fun, I suppose. But usually what happens is I think about a movie for at least a year - maybe a couple more - and I don't put anything down.

Building upon the world we created with 'Avatar' has been a rare and incredibly rewarding experience. In writing the new films, I've come to realize that 'Avatar's world, story and characters have become even richer than I anticipated, and it became apparent that two films would not be enough to capture everything I wanted to put on screen.

I was originally a painter, and I made films sort of as an extension of that, and then I started to try to make dramatic films because the early films were experimental films.

My dad told me, 'Your movie's never as good as the dailies and never as bad as the rough cut.

I've produced a couple of films and really enjoyed starting it from the very beginning and seeing it all the way through to the end; that was very gratifying.

I mean, frankly, I'm not speaking as a representative of Disney or Pixar, I'm speaking as just myself as a filmmaker: I don't go into anything that often thinking about a sequel.

Making a film, setting it up and getting it cast and getting it together, is not an easy thing.

After I made my first short film that wasn't terrible, people were interested in potentially developing a feature with me. Every time I read a script, it was a bizarre, too-dark, genre-less thing that no one wanted to make.

The average development time for a Hollywood movie is nine years. Nine years for a studio film. And a lot of what you do is abstract.

Well, we are not doing that film actually. At least I am not at the moment, but we are making an effort to get it done; I don't know whether we'll get the financing for it. The old story we had it, it fell out of place and this and that.

Meanwhile, the Ice Storm was still in development, And that was something I really wanted to do, and frankly I don't think I was ready to do a big production like this.

I started working with James [Schamus] early on, and my role as an executive producer was more about being involved in the conversations of putting the film together. I didn't have to do much work because James is the most experienced first-time director you could imagine.

I'd been writing my own coming-of-age story, and I got to take a lot of that energy and a lot of those moments and themes that I wanted to explore in a much smaller film and then apply them to 'Spider-Man: Homecoming.'

'Deadpool' took seven years to get to the motion picture screen, and I use that as my measurement. That tested me and my patience more than anything I could've imagined because the screenplay was so good.

I was in a store in Halifax, Nova Scotia that I love, sort of like an environmental friendly sort of store. But they had a great book section. So I went in there all the time. The woman who worked there - which I feel so bad; I've forgotten her name - she handed me the book and she said, "Hey, you should read this. I think it would make a good movie." I remember reading the back of it and I was like, "Huh." Then I just devoured the book and I was so moved by it and said, "Why don't we start developing this into a film?" So that's how it ['Into the Forest'] all started.

I'm doing a music video for a group called 'Die Antwoord.' That's fun, but yeah, I'm trying to get a live-action film off the ground, and that could take anywhere from a few months to the rest of my life.

When I did my first film, I was in college; I did it as a senior thesis. The original version was 60 minutes. But I developed it and made it almost 90 minutes. In 2007, it premiered in Venice, and I stopped in London to develop a script with my dad that fell apart, and we started 'Gravity.'

I've always thought photography was a bit of an adventure, so to come home with the film, develop it, then look at the results has more of a sense of excitement.

The first draft of 'Ex Machina' is extremely different than the finished film. That would be like 10% of the original draft stayed into the shooting script.

You know, this is such a rich time that we've just been involved in, and there's really a job now for historians. Film is still very young. This is the first hundred years of filmmaking. So I think it's important that we have some sense of history and continuity. Especially in film.

It's hard to get personal films off the ground, and it's hard developing them.

The great thing about being a producer on a project is that you get to see the ins and outs of every piece of the puzzle. There are so many elements involved in every aspect of a film's development that I don't think the average person is aware of, which is, I guess, why the whole process is referred to as movie magic.

I feel when I say I can do something and carry this opportunity to make movies, it's because I took the time to study it. A boxer can't just jump in the ring. You've got to practice and practice and practice.

Ultimately, the film industry has always pushed out its biggies, and I don't have a problem with that. I just wish that we'd spend more time nurturing the smaller ones.

There was a moment with 'Zootopia' where we said, 'This is the experiment: let's try Judy in the role of the protagonist. Let her character introduce us to the city and this world.' And suddenly, all that struggling and trying to make traction into this story was done.