Richard Linklater Quotes

I have been making films for 25 years now and I am not mad to invest in something from where recovery becomes an issue.

I have always tried to make profitable films because people's offices shut down if films fail, and I will do everything to avoid that.

If you are not making any mistakes, you are being excessively risk-averse. Investing involves risk, and that means you will occasionally be wrong. And although it is okay to be wrong, it is not okay to stay wrong.

Nobody is going to keep giving me chances even after two-three of my films don't do well.

Even after I had just done Twilight, which made $400 million at the worldwide box office, I could not get financing for three or four projects that I really loved and I thought people would love because they didn't fit some studio or investor's model of thinking, "This will definitely make money." It's a business and a film does potentially cost millions of dollars, and they have to think that they're going to get their money back somehow.

A lot of times, I relied on connections through my agency, just for financing and things like that. Even when I'm looking for a million and a half dollars to do a small film, there can always be hold-ups, because it's a large amount of money for some people, and it's a small amount of money for other people. In any case, it's significant enough to where you have to jump through a lot of hoops to get it to happen. Sometimes, the people who are helping you can drop the ball. And, of course, the reason agents want you to do bigger projects is that they make a bigger cut.

If your investing approach requires that you become Nostradamus to succeed, then you are destined to fail.

If studios don't get their money back, we don't have any movies. So it is important that films are successful, and I am fully supportive of that because I'm not just a director, I'm also not stupid. I've been in this business long enough and, to a certain extent, I'm a businessman; I know the importance of that.

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

Never take advice from anyone in a tie. They'll bankrupt you. Don't ask a general for advice on war, and don't ask a broker for advice on money.

If you want your film to be instantly green-lit, your first approach is not to go to a relatively unknown English actor. They're not going to throw millions of dollars at you for that.

I could never gamble on stocks and shares because I saw my father get hurt that way - he lost quite a lot of money when the stock market collapsed in 2001.

The major studios are by and large banks, and they give you what is by and large a loan to make a movie. Like banks, they want their money back plus.

If I finance a bank and I know if the bank will get in trouble, I will be hit and I will lose money, I will put a price on that.

Millions have been taken from me. If you are not on top of it and you make a lot of money, and you trust business managers, then, yes, money will be taken from you.

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.

I had four films one year that were supposed to happen and didn't.

As a professional, you can afford to pick some stocks and be wrong about a few of them. To keep your job, you cannot take the risk of being seen to be wrong about the 'big picture' for very long.

I plough all my money into my next film, so I never actually have any money. It's always invisible.

I've never made a film that lost money.

I can't afford to die; I'd lose too much money.

I think producers are more interested in backing concepts than directors and writers. I don't think that's the right way of making a decision about whether you're going to back a film or not.

Coppola has problems getting financing, so why should I not have problems getting financing.

I don't think 'Guts' could get financed as a movie.

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.