Markus Zusak Quotes

Adapting a novel is not really about being faithful to every word and every moment the author has created. It's more about that same story being filtered through somebody else's sensibility.

I don't make movies because I think audiences will want to go see them.

With a film, you try to keep your vision in it. I think with 'The American' and 'Control' I managed to do that.

All I can say is that I am not one of those writers who want 100% of their book in the film. I recognize that film is a different medium and the filmmaker must have the right to bring some new elements to the table, provided the soul of the book is preserved.

The great thing about Stephen is that he sees the movie as a separate thing, I think. He wants it to capture the essence of the book, and if he feels that's been done, then he's not too particular about the details. I think that's why he's happy.

The Weinsteins believe in test screenings. I don't. I don't think good films are made that way. Call me crazy, but I'd like to think you need a singular vision to make good art.

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

I've gotten to a point where I wouldn't direct someone else's material. It would only be something totally original.

Unfortunately, the author of a book pretty much gives up control of the story when the producers take over a book to make it into a movie.

My colleagues and I have to constantly remind each other that we must keep our own view on the world while making films. With 'Chicken Run,' we learned how easy it is to be influenced by outside forces, but you mustn't lose the heart and soul of what you are doing.

The biggest thing I have realized was that you have to choose your collaborators very carefully, and that not everybody can like you. The process of filmmaking is so difficult, there's no point in doing it unless you can do it the way you want.

If I get a note on my script or my films, what I say to a studio executive is that, 'You know, this is the film of my legacy, and I never want to be sitting in a theater looking up on the screen and seeing something that I don't believe in.' I will never do that.

When I make movies, I don't ever go out there to please anyone other than myself. I never try to make a film for the masses. I just try to tell my story.

They say I'm insane because I need to have so much creative control. They say I'm unmanageable, but I'm not. I just know what I like. I'm obsessed with it. If you can't control it, that's like having somebody else paint your pictures. How could you do that? I never could.

When you make a movie, you can only make the movie that you would want to see.

I don't worry about what everyone wants to see. I make movies that please a writer, director and myself. I always think there are enough people smart as me and sensitive as me.

I do believe very much in movie as a one-man-show. I think that where I've watched movie go wrong, it's usually because the dread committee has been interfering with it.

As a director, you never think about how an audience would respond. You can think about that, but you will never change what you're going to do.

We are going to finish this picture just the way I want it... because you cannot compromise an artist's vision.

I'm doing the kind of show that I would want to see.

Some writers get snooty about what happens when their books are adapted to film, but I don't feel that way.

When I did 'Stardust,' I was fighting the studio for things I believed were right.

I don't make films to reproduce reality.

I think my background in film taught me that a great book adaptation is not always slavishly faithful to the source material.

In 'Blood Work,' they made choices I wouldn't have made, but I'm not a filmmaker. I took the money, and they told the story.