Studio Expectations Quotes

I don't think that Dreamworks would have signed me expecting to really mess around with whatever it is I do.

The struggle of making a film for any studio is the fact that the producers and the studio have an idea of what the movie should be, but that is especially the case when the director is being replaced three weeks before principal photography. The challenge for me was to make sure that was my version of 'The Wolfman.' And I've done that. I think.

There's this index that tallies up how much your movies have made, and if they haven't grossed a certain amount, then you're not bankable. I know I'm not Will Smith but, you know, my ranking's pretty low. The only studio picture I've done is 'Zodiac,' and that didn't perform that well.

You want to give the person as much freedom as you can within the boundaries of being a responsible producer with a contract to a studio. It's about giving as much freedom as you can, and the more the filmmaker proves he or she is on the track that you feel good about, then you just kind of watch dailies.

I knew that there was an upcoming screening where not only were we going to show it to everybody else at the studio, we also needed to move into production... And yet I was sitting there in editorial going this is not working. I'm a failure.

Hollywood expects you to experiment but on a film that makes money and if you don't make money, you're to blame. Your job is to make money.

One of the main things when you get notes from a studio is they don't want anyone to be confused ever, everything has got to be so obvious at all times unless it's a twist ending.

I try to find the right director who won't compromise his or anyone else's integrity, and yet be political enough to give the studio what they want, yet put up a fight to maintain that integrity.

When we did Wayne's World, it was 14 million dollars and they didn't bug us too much because they just thought it was some little movie that nobody was ever going to see. We showed them.

I do try to deliver a solid first draft, meaning it's my tenth or twentieth draft and then I call it 'first' and hand it in, much to the chagrin of the studio sometimes when they look at the contract and go, 'You've passed your deadline.'

When you're going for a big studio comedy, the joke tally better be pretty high, and you better have some big comedy set pieces. That was one of the issues when I was trying to get 'Swingers' made for the first time, which is that there weren't any broad comedy set pieces.

As far as comic books are concerned, I was always a Marvel guy for the most part, although I did follow DC a little. I don't know, honestly I'd just like to play whatever role [that] not just the studio, but the fans think I fit the best into. Because I think, especially in worlds like that, you've really got to do right by the fan base and stay in tune with what they are looking for and what they desire. I would just want to do right by them.

I really only worked for about a month on 'Meatballs.' What happened was that Ivan Reitman figured out that studios wanted to meet everybody involved with 'Animal House' except the producer. So he thought he'd better start directing.

It's no secret that my process is a little bit loose and can be a little bit infuriating to a studio if they don't know what they're signing up for.

Writing is a black-box proposition. You see actors; you can see what they're doing. You can watch the director on set doing his work. But when a studio says to a writer, 'Give us some pages,' he just goes off and comes back. It's just pages, and suddenly, there's some writing on them.

I think the purpose of test screenings is different for the studio and for the filmmaker. For the studio, I think they want to know whether the film works or not.

You can build up expectations for a song before you record it, and then it's like nothing's good enough in the studio.

The problem is, when you're making an animated movie, the studio has an illusion in their minds - and it's really not true - that because it's a drawing, it can be changed at any time.

When making any record, a producer has a list of things you hope an artist brings to the studio. Songs that are strong even without the bells and whistles.

I like to think I'm making films in the film business where movies are making enough numbers for the studios to let me keep working, but you also want those films to have content that makes you proud you made the film. That's not easy, but it's a fun puzzle to figure out.

Of all studios that should be doing 2-D animation, it should be Disney.