I wanted to do a film for a while, but I never found a script that I felt I was going to be the right person for; because if you've never made a film, you're not taught how to make a film, and you feel like you lack skills.
When I'm actually making a film and trying to find solutions, I like to watch making-of documentaries about huge films, like 'Gladiator.' That couldn't be more apart from what I'm doing, but you see Ridley Scott facing huge problems and fixing them.
I would like to see more Bollywood films! The more stylized musicals are a new trend in the U.S. We are beginning to make musicals again after a long break, practically since the days of the studio structure, so perhaps we can learn a few things from...
It is totally different making films in the East than in the West. In the East, I make my own Jackie Chan films, and it's like my family. Sometimes I pick up the camera because I choreograph all the fighting scenes, even when I'm not fighting. I don'...
When you make a film, you sign a contract with somebody, and it's not only legally binding but morally binding. You agree to give this man a certain number of weeks of your life, and you just go for it as much as possible. Because, whatever happens, ...
If I give five flops, I won't get a job. You have to perform at the box office when you are at the top. No one is running a charity here. People are putting huge amounts of money to make movies, and they want the films to be successful. They have inv...
When you're talking about who is doing the most exciting and interesting horror films of the last 20 years, it's Japan. I mean, they are making amazing films.
We've seen so many films now, that you have to be on par with the best films that have preceded you. You just can't make any movie and it will be good.
In America, they shoot budgets and schedules, and they don't shoot films any more. There's more opportunity in Europe to make films that at least have a purity of intent.
I want to make films without a single clear message, and films that are as close as possible to what it feels like to be alive. At least to me.
When you're supposed to be close and friends in the film, the moment you're talking as friends off the set, it makes it that much better when you're filming.
When you work so hard on making a film, it's all worthwhile when you get to experience seeing that film with an audience who thoroughly enjoy it and react to the movie.
As I began making my feature films, it was a great adventure. It was about constructing something I saw in my head or I had designed on storyboards and capturing that on film.
Clearly any film company that makes a film is always going to talk about sequels particularly if they see something as being successful, which Werewolf was.
When Walt Disney was making his films, he trusted his instincts and made films for himself, but they appealed to everybody, not just kids.
I think the situation in Toronto is such that there are funding organizations which make it easy for a film to raise more money than it needs and very often that works against a film.
The thing that fascinates me is that the way I came to film and television is extinct. Then there were gatekeepers, it was prohibitively expensive to make a film, to be a director you had to be an entrepreneur to raise money.
I never would have guessed I would be making science fiction and horror films.
Films with a message just make me laugh.
It's easy to make a film, but it's hard to make a career of being a filmmaker.
I look at American movies, the big muscles, and try to apply that to Chinese film-making.
