Studio Executives Quotes

I'm fed up with the idiots... the ever-widening gap between people who know how to make movies and the people who green-light the movies.

Crikey means gee whiz, wow! Crikey, mate. You're far safer dealing with crocodiles and western diamondback rattlesnakes than the executives and the producers and all those sharks in the big MGM building.

I attended first a military academy, then a public school in Beverly Hills, where we lived, and many of my classmates were the children of movie stars and studio executives.

Stars have no say in the release of a film. There are too many factors involved.

The first time I did a big American film, I was surprised by all the different financiers who came to the set and told the director what to do.

People think that the people in Hollywood have some master plan. They just make the movies that people go to see. I think it's that simple. I promise you if people were lining up around the block to see a Bible movie, they'd make Bible movies from now to the end of time.

The Hollywood structure was monopolistic, run by four or five big studios.

Hollywood is a world where the only thing that gets green-lit is something that made money the last year.

But at the same time, never having final cut before, I really learned an interesting thing for any studio executive who is reading this: that if a director has final cut, it's actually easier and more interesting to listen to notes.

I suspect that a lot of studio executives still think of me as 'what's-his-name'.

The main trouble with Hollywood is that the guys you have to pitch to, the guys who run the studios, are all business school grads.

I've never really had a problem with the imagination level of an audience. They're always smarter and savvier than any studio exec will give them credit for.

I don't watch the movies I make, so I haven't seen 'Footloose' since it came out. You see this young, hungry actor, it's pretty fun. I was the only one they screen tested. It was an attempt by the director and producer to talk the head of the studio into hiring me because they didn't want me.

We were all ruled by the studio system. I signed a contract for seven years.

A German shepherd dog could walk in the office with a script in his mouth, and if that script was really good, they'd buy the script.

Writing screenplays is not my business. I've written half a dozen, and maybe half of those were made. But it was never a satisfying experience. It was just work. You're an employee. You would be told what to do. Studio execs would cross out my dialogue and put in their dialogue.

As a producer, it's your job to bang on the table and convince studio heads why great movies should be made.

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.

In most cases, I think most executive producers and studio executives really do their best to accommodate you. At least, that's been my experience in most cases.

By the time we got to MGM, and Lions Gate the movie was done there was nothing else to say. It was done. Just as at Universal, it was art by committee.

I'll audition for something and then the feedback has been, 'The director wants you, the creative people want you, but the studio is saying no.' It's depressing, but I understand. People are investing a lot of money and they want somewhat of a guarantee; they want someone who's been on the cover of magazines.

Every time a film comes together, usually the studio executives come up for a day to the set. If you're out of town, they'll fly in or wherever you are - the cast, the director, the producers - all get together and have a big dinner and celebrate the fact that we're about to start shooting.

The Paramount executives were so pleased with Sunset Boulevard that they asked me to do a publicity tour.

We're told that independent film lovers... folks that are used to watching art house films, won't come out and see a film with black people in it - I've been told that in rooms, big rooms, studio rooms, and I know that's not true.

When I was starting out, the first women studio heads and writers were just getting into their perches - development execs learning their chops.