Spike Lee Quotes

We went into this with the utmost respect for the source material, but we recognized the need for change.

Any director who comes into a revival owes a great deal to the original director. If I know the backbone works, it gives me, as a director, much more freedom to bring something new to it or try something different.

A movie is not a book. If the source material is a book, you cannot be too respectful of the book. All you owe to the book is the spirit.

If you've done a brilliant version it becomes something else.

Let's just say that I don't think our show has very much in common with the book any more.

I think plays deserve other interpretations. They should live on, and other people should should take their hand at them. I'm very supportive of that.

If you're going to reboot something, reboot it in a totally original way that speaks to a new generation.

In my mind, I'm no longer daunted by the idea of a remake. In fact, I now look at it as a genre unto itself - so long as you make it your own.

May I say that I approve of a piece that tries to remake the entire puzzle?

You shouldn't think of these movies as being 'The Lord of the Rings.' The Lord of the Rings is, and always will be, a wonderful book - one of the greatest ever written. Any films will only ever be an INTERPRETATION of the book. In this case my interpretation.

Can't reinvent the wheel. But you can put your own spin on it.

Every trick is an old one, but with a change of players, a change of dress, it comes out as new as before.

I'm always glad to see somebody rethink something rather than reproduce something I did.

My job is not to save 'The Wheel of Time', to fix 'The Wheel of Time', or anything like that. My job is not to screw it up.

Obsolescence never meant the end of anything, it's just the beginning.

The challenge of a revival is how to bring something fresh. The reward is the opportunity to add different flourishes. You're dealing with different actors, designers and a different time.

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.

Japan's very interesting. Some people think it copies things. I don't think that anymore. I think what they do is reinvent things. They will get something that's already been invented and study it until they thoroughly understand it. In some cases, they understand it better than the original inventor.

I am still making order out of chaos by reinvention.

I'm not that big a fan of sampling. But I feel like if I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it to where it's more of a reimagining of a track. The songs that I do utilize samples on, most of it you wouldn't even be able to tell what it was unless I told you.

We want to do for 'Hamlet' what Baz Luhrmann did for 'Romeo and Juliet' in terms of like a really cool kind of re-imagining.

What I think happens, and that you have to acknowledge though, is that a director uses a book as a launching pad for his own work and that's always very flattering.

No, it's interesting to remake a film for the contemporary audience today. I think it's a good idea; it needs to respect the original idea. Don't just take the title and change everything else.

My advice to anyone adapting a novel is that once they've read it and learnt to understand it, then they must throw it away and never look at it again!

To me, the ultimate crime in an adaptation is the crime of reverence. A novel is one form of media, a screenplay is another, and a movie is yet another. There's even reverence to a screenplay.