Michel Hazanavicius Quotes

I think there are more films being made, but there are probably less outlets for them and distributors.

I don't care to analyze acting. On the other hand there is a fascination because distributors are putting out British films. You get films here with great performances you'll never see again. Why compare. We should go after the businessmen.

I would love nothing more than me and my family getting green cards, going to L.A. for a year, sitting down with the big Hollywood studios and coming up with the most advanced and awesome Internet distribution platform for movies. It would make Hollywood more money than cinemas, DVDs, and everything else combined.

The film business has so many twists and turns that it's a miracle any film gets made.

Paramount Pictures is a perfect partner for Electric Entertainment, with the most stable group of executives in Hollywood and unparalleled global promotion and distribution reach.

Every time I make American film I just trust American directors and American writers.

If you make a film normally it's all right, the distributors are helpful and cooperative. But if you make a film that's a little stange, a little bizarre, then all the time it's a struggle with them.

As a director, or just a film fan who wants to enjoy the festival, Cannes is the worst place to be. But it must be a paradise for distributors and importers.

As a screenwriter, there's so many layers you have to go through in order to tell your story. You have to write the script, get money for the script, shoot it, find distributors, make it into film festivals, all of that just to get to your audience.

The traditional Hollywood system is pretty rigid, but the film scene in, say, South Africa is booming with a lot of possibilities. If you have the cameras and reasonable capital, you can put your film in theatres next to 'Guardians of the Galaxy.' A great example of that was Kagiso Lediga's film 'Blitz Patrole.'

Each multiplex has screens allocated to each studio. The screens need filling. Studios have to create product to fill their screen, and the amount of good product is limited.

In Hollywood, a lot of times when something is in development, it just takes a lot of time.

Let me tell you one thing: there is no more cutthroat place to be than an independent film. Disney is a cakewalk after that - that is no lie.

With movies, it always feels like such a long shot getting it made.

I just wish one of the big American studios had bought 'Devdas.' They would have pitched the film for the Oscars in a big way, like Miramax did with the Chinese film 'Hero.'

There was a time when the directors would sign me first and then go to the hero. There was a time when on my name a film used to be sold.

I think, it's important to understand how to release a film.

I love 3D, and I'm very upset about the way it's being treated and thrown away by Hollywood in this kind of horrible grab for the money with all these bad 3D movies and terrible 3D conversions.

Our film society back home is so different from here. Making a movie is universal. Directing a movie is universal; it's a universal language. It's just figuring things out and understanding the codes and how the system of Hollywood compares to that of Norway. We don't even have agents. There's no studio system, no managers.

I was on Warner Bros. for a minute.

I grew up on the commercial film format. I have grown up all my life watching films and they have all been mainstream commercial cinema.

When I went to Sundance back in 1998, indie film was all the rage, and Miramax was throwing down five or six million dollars for several films each year. Those were the salad days of indie film, and those days are over. I'm not out there worrying too much about it.

Getting a movie made is a miracle... because the studios are only interested in making 'The Avengers.'

Tokyo is wonderful for distribution of international films, a lot of Iranian films, Taiwanese films. But most of the art films are from Europe and Asia.

When 'Pizza' released, I was a nobody. Initially, we managed to get only 100 screens. But, after its success, the producers of 'Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanom' got 150 screens and also released the film in the U.S. Now, distributors are keen to invest in my films because they feel I have face value.