Francis Ford Coppola Quotes

The prime motivation in making almost any film is success, because film is the art form of the 20th century.

I honestly think I could sit down and write a show tonight that the critics would love, and I know it would be canceled within four weeks. I know what the critics love. We write and produce for people, not for critics.

Just because you've made a couple movies, you've done some good movies, you've been nominated for some Academy Awards, whatever, nobody's entitled. It's a business. If they don't see it, I can think they're wrong, but I'm not entitled to a $15 million budget to make a film.

I shot this wonderful picture called American Saint a couple of years ago, which is still looking for release.

For me the most moving moment came when I first started working on 2001. I was already in awe of him, and he had very much already become Stanley Kubrick by the time the film started.

When I came out to Hollywood, I discovered the perfect place for my creative madness - Cannon Pictures.

Even though some of the films I've made haven't been particularly commercial, I don't find them failures.

The only reason why I would like to be accepted? Because if your movies don't do well, after a while you don't get to make any more movies.

I thought that making movies was drab. I'd lived through that. And I didn't want to use my parents, ever... They didn't want to push me into this business.

Some day I'll make a film that critics will like. When I have money to waste.

Hollywood is a town; it's not a medium. And cinema is a medium you can practice anywhere.

I think people who make movies and have invested a lot of money in them get frightened that if they challenge an audience they are going to repel them. And I think the opposite; it's really true.

I've made 30 movies and for the most part my movies work. In a business where success is an exception and not the rule, I've mostly been successful.

With directing, you always have three or four things constantly on the go. It's a tough industry and a tough time, particularly if you're doing things a little outside the box or independent features.

A director in Hollywood in my time couldn't do what he wanted to do.

I don't think any studio - it was a long shot at the time - but I don't think any studio in a million years would make 'Thelma and Louise' right now. But there's so many other kinds of movies they won't make right now.

When you boil it down, most movies are message movies. And I think careers are made in message movies.

Film, as far as I'm concerned, is my area of artistic endeavor, so I never think of a movie that gets released as being all done-it's just when they took it away from you.

I've never been that much of a money guy. I'm more of a film guy, and most of the money I've made is in defense of trying to keep creative control of my movies.

Anyone who thinks Peter Jackson would fall for market forces around him rather than artistic integrity doesn't know the guy or the body of his work.

The only way you can continue to make artistic films is to make an occasional one of those. They kind of keep your marketability going to the extent that people will employ you.

It was always my dream to be a director. A lot of it had to do with controlling my own destiny, because as a young actor you feel at everyone's disposal. But I wanted to become a leader in the business.

I never made the movies for the critics; I've done the best I could with the material and the directors and the actors I had. But the thing that's really exciting is that once I do that one project that's different, that stands out, everyone's gonna be watching.

The problem with most Hollywood movies is they don't give the director enough control.

Woody Allen would go for seven years without a movie and then make one that makes no money.