Judd Apatow Quotes

The one thing I'm proud of as a filmmaker is that people are entitled not to like my films - that's the privilege of the public - but I think I have my own imprint.

I want people to come see my films and enjoy them, but at the end of the day you can't control what people think.

I don't want to admit it, but I do enjoy the feedback from the audience. It's instant feedback. It's like, you could do a movie, shoot it for a year, wait six months, it comes out and you gotta do three weeks of marketing. Three weeks of that, and everyone goes, 'It sucks.'

I don't believe that you can judge the worth of a movie in the atmosphere in which it comes out the first time. There's just so many reasons why some pictures don't catch on.

I like test screenings. I like to see a movie with an audience of strangers. I think it tells you a lot.

'The Hangover' was, like, solid. I laughed a bit, you know. Seven out of 10, maybe. But I made it 32 minutes into 'Hangover 2' before I walked out.

Once, I got slaughtered after 'Blade Runner' by Pauline Kael: three pages of slaughter. I was so offended, I would never read any more press.

I don't think the audience always listens to the critics. That's been proven time and time again.

Every time you do something, people are going to like it, people are going to hate it. You tend to make the movies on the basis you are making them for the people who are going to like them and not worrying too much about people who don't like them.

No one knows why a film does well or not. The reasons for this are not important. What is important is the intention you start the film with and the final state when the film releases on a Friday - whether people liked it or not.

I do not keep a track of numbers as such, but I am definitely aware of how a film of mine is doing when it is playing in theatres. More than the numbers, it is important to know how the audience is reacting to the film.

I do feel bad when my films don't do well, but I respect audiences' verdict because they know well which films to support. If they don't like a film, we should accept it.

If a movie has three decent scenes and a decent character, I think, 'OK, at least they got that guy right.'

It's so miserable and so easy to keep slamming Titanic -- I'll shut up.

The joke loses everything when the joker laughs himself.

I’ve been accused of ‘raping’ the audience in my films, and I admit to that freely — all movies assault the viewer in one way or another.

Sometimes when I do a joke and it doesn't get a lot of laughs, it kind of feels like I'm doing jazz. That's kinda cool because jazz is cool, but sometimes jazz sucks ... Maybe I'm the Kenny G of comedy.

There's always gonna be criticisms, no matter what movie you do, no matter what. You can't please everybody, and it doesn't matter what the genre is. There's always gonna be a positive to a negative comment.

You listen to the audience. The audience is wrong individually and always right collectively. If they don't laugh, it isn't funny. If they cough, it isn't interesting. If they walk out, you are in trouble.

I don't read the reviews because they're too horrible and the reviewers have not been big supporters of mine over the years, probably because I make these big populist movies and they hate it.

As a filmmaker you have to keep asking yourself the question are we really going to impress them [audience] either by the wow factor, the intelligence factor, the I didn't see that coming factor?

Nobody went to see Tideland! I was hoping people would get angry about it but those that saw it didn't want to talk about it. This is the world we're living in, people don't want to discuss things that are actually worth discussing.

There's a guy in the audience with a distinctive laugh. I hope that guy is miked. The only problem with having a distinctive laugh is I know exactly when that guy isn't laughing. "Oh, distinctive laugh doesn't think that joke was funny!"

Confession: When I went to see The Empire Strikes Back I found myself glancing at my watch. The Force is with us, indeed, and a lot of it is hot air. It's a measure of my mixed feelings about The Empire Strikes Back that I'm not at all sure that I understand the plot. The Empire Strikes Back is about as personal as a Christmas card from a bank.

When you're on a film and you're doubting something, it's usually because you don't think the audience is going to like it.