When I was working my way up, it seemed to me that only Westerns and 'Star Treks' or sci-fi movies could afford to get away with presenting the problems - like prejudice and desegregation, for instance - that we face in our everyday lives.
Why isn't the movie industry forced to open its shooting locations to an organization that is there to advocate for animal actors? The industry isn't allowed to pick and choose which movies using young children it will or won't allow to be monitored....
I notice when I'm at a party where I don't know anybody - even if I have nothing in common with somebody - we can still talk because we were raised by the same TV and cartoons and movies.
I make movies the same way other kids play tennis or go to piano lessons. I'm trying to get better at what I want to do, just like other kids are trying to get better at what they want to do.
It's difficult to do a genre film well, and it doesn't matter if you're talking vampire movies or 'Dawn of the Dead' or 'The Thing' or 'Escape From New York.' Those kind of movies, they understand what the old-school B-movie is supposed to be, they g...
For me, it's very easy to write a horror movie that's just a succession of scary sequences, but it's hard to find horror movies that have a genuine theme to them that are really exploring some aspect of our psychology and our fears.
The most difficult part of making movies is to keep making them. Maybe, you could make the biggest hit in the world, but then the big problem is what to do next and how to maintain devoted to a certain instinct that I have about films.
I'm just happy to be a film where for once I don't have to worry about my hair, because my managers are always complaining about my hair looking depressing in my movies. Which is true. I mean, it's true.
As a kid, my idols were Sam Raimi and Peter Jackson, and I get into crazy races with myself. Raimi was 21 when he made movies, and when I didn't get 'Cabin Fever' made that fast I thought I'd failed.
I just feel like with independent movies... they're really free to do whatever they want. They're not afraid to make a statement about anything, and there's not a huge studio behind them making sure that everything is wholesome and politically correc...
I'd like to produce. I'd like to come up with ideas and collaborate with people and directors and writers that I like, be a part of movies that have the same idea that the movies that impacted me have. I'd like to be able to do that for people.
You'll see a lot more blood in 'Saw' movies or something like that than you will in either of the 'Last House' movies. I kind of think it owes more to 'The Virgin Spring' which is the original source material, the Bergman movie.
There's been a vacuum with movies that people can relate to. There's been a paucity of dramas that people can relate to. I think audiences are clamoring to connect - particularly after 9/11 - with things that are genuine and real and I think document...
My father is an actor, and I used to go on set to visit him. I saw the stories he was telling and said: 'That's what I want to do.' I was always in awe whenever I went to the movies or when I watched television.
My mother told me I was begging her to be an actor when I was four. My father and my grandfather saw at least one or two movies a week; they were film buffs, so I guess it just rubbed off on me.
I like horror movies, and in fact I like them even more now after making one. I just think they're much more liberating because you don't really have to apply a very strict logic.
Last year, when 'Black Swan,' 'True Grit' and 'King's Speech' all grossed over $100 million, it gave studios and independent financiers the confidence to make daring movies and not do the same old you-know-what.
I first heard African drum rhythms and chants at the movies. Then, when I had the opportunity to go to Africa and visit the villages, I heard the real, raw, true rhythms and realised the origins of the old Negro spirituals I grew up with in the South...
Even some of us who make movies underestimate their influence abroad. American movies sell American culture. Foreigners want to see American movies. But that's also why so many foreign governments and groups object to them.
The thing that is incredibly helpful is that we screen the movies and we ask the audience if they like it or not and we ask a lot of questions and do testing on the movies. For comedies, at least, it's very helpful. If they're not laughing and they d...
I'm a big believer in creating parameters for creativity. I think parameters make people more creative. So that starts with my budgets. I only do low budget movies, and I think that makes the movies better.
