Stephen Frears Quotes

My taste in films doesn't lead financers to think they are going to make a zillion dollars.

When you do bigger films, the financiers take more risks.

Hollywood executives believe that money is both the be-all and end-all to the moviemaking process.

So many things have to come together to get a creatively successful and financially successful film. Sometimes you'll have a movie that you're very proud of, and you think it transcended all of your expectations, but it doesn't come out at the right time. I have done movies that have never been released. That can be depressing.

There's a long history of people who spent that $300,000 on their first film and weren't quite ready, and then they never did it again 'cause they were out of synch with where they were, and they would never raise that money again.

If I want to be a leading man in a film, box office numbers count because producers have invested money. I see no wrong in that process.

When you tell a film financier that you want to do a Shakespeare film, their face drops. Shakespeare films don't have a very wonderful history at the box office.

At the end of the day, there is a lot of money that gets put into films.

Content is now the most import factor that decides a film's success at the box office, so we as filmmakers are all trying different stories.

Right after 'The Wackness' came out, it was a really exciting time, and then it was a bit disappointing when it came out. Even though not that many people saw it, I was still getting offered some movies. I was thinking that people would just stop calling me since it didn't do very well at the box office.

The movies I made early on may not have been great, but they were all commercially successful.

If your movies don't perform, they just stop calling you.

There are films that cost a lot of money that might be decent films. But if they don't perform in that first weekend or two, they're gone.

There were a lot of people dreaming about making films, and they would finance maybe 6 films a year. Because they were funded by the government, the films sort-of had to deal with serious social issues - and, as a result, nobody went to see those films.

People will say a movie bombed at the box office but I couldn't care less.

I guess, you make a big studio film, you spend a lot of money on it and you hope people go see it. It's really risky.

I would love it if my films made a lot of money, and may I say that 'The Yards' is the only one that's lost money.

And the insidious thing is that people will either see a movie because it did well last weekend or won't see it because it didn't do well.

I've never made a film that lost money.

People are very reluctant to invest unless they know it's going to be a sure thing, and let's face it: film is never a sure thing.

What counts in Hollywood is box office. It doesn't really matter what people think of you as an actor because, as long as you have been in a movie that has made money, you will always get another job.

If I read the right script, if that script needs $5 million, if that script needs $50 million, I don't care. If I read a project that's beautiful, that I really want to make, whatever it needs, it needs.

You end up giving up half your salary every time you make a movie because you need the money to make the movie you have in your head.

To me, the box-office is basically the cost of film. If your film costs so much and your box-office is so much and a bit more, you are okay.

I'd hate to see any film I'm involved in fail, especially artistically but also business-wise.