Pitch Meeting Quotes

I've never had to pitch a movie to a studio. I usually just let people read the script, then I cast it. I always think pitching is for baseball.

People complain about Hollywood movies being similar. That goes right down to the fundamental green light process, because the process involves having to compare it to three other movies.

In Hollywood, 'under development' means 'all I have is the title.'

Many people have been able to get pitch meetings by just cold calling, especially the smaller networks and especially with the reality shows.

I basically drew my own family. My father's name is Homer. My mother's name is Margaret. I have a sister Lisa and another sister Maggie, so I drew all of them. I was going to name the main character Matt, but I didn't think it would go over well in a pitch meeting, so I changed the name to Bart.

Going into 'Details' magazine to pitch concepts for a potential photo shoot was one of the most nerve-wracking things I had ever done. I didn't really know what one did in a pitch, how they were structured, etc., and that freaked me out big time.

When you decide you want to become a television writer, you naively assume it's going to be like the writers on the old 'Dick Van Dyke Show.' You'll write something and they'll just put it on TV. But what you quickly discover is that American network television is television by committee.

I have a couple screenplays that are done, and I'm looking for the right people to help me make them. I do a lot of television writing to develop new ideas for shows.

It's very rare you get a great script just handed to you, or sent to you, by someone you don't know.

I've sold shows based on my standup twice to CBS, but they've never gone past the script stage. TV is very competitive.

I worked in Hollywood as a reader and a would-be writer for about 6 years before I sold my first story.

As far as getting my start, it was really Norman Lear, even aside from being on 'All in the Family.' He helped me get my start as a director. He was the one who said, 'Let him do 'Spinal Tap.' Let him give it a try,' because I had been trying for years to get that thing off the ground.

It's hard to get movies made.

I've been in the game long enough to know what elements you have to package together to get a movie into production.

Well I've got lots more great TV projects in the pipeline.

I've pitched movies to all of the major studio heads in my time.

When you're struggling to get a feature film off the ground, there's no big overarching tenure plan or anything like that.

Making movies seemed so impossible as far as getting my ideas funded.

I pitched Jay Hunt the opening scene (prime minister, middle of the night, he's woken up...). She paused, and then she laughed. She was very intrigued and all that, and then she said, "Does it have to be a pig?" So we went through various options: Could it be a supermarket frozen chicken? A giant wheel of cheese? A pig seemed just the right level of absurd, but then when he walks in and there's actually a pig there, it's awful.

When I was in drama development, you hear anywhere between 500 to 600 pitches a season, and you do feel like you hit the wall. But I will never say, 'No, I won't hear that.'

I could sell my own TV show, but I couldn't get it made.

I'm not sitting around thinking of ideas for TV shows.

It's rare that a character film is easy to fund.

It's incredibly, incredibly difficult to get a movie made.

You know in Hollywood, everything is more talk than action. Every project takes a long time to get off the ground.