Sanjay Leela Bhansali Quotes

It's a sin to have your films not to make money.

I've said this over the years publicly - this is not a lucrative business. My goal every year is to break even with the White Sox.

In the U.K., there's absolutely no money for television. So you can do pretty much whatever you want. They're not losing money on any of the shows, so they'll give you a lot of creative freedom. In the United States, there are millions and millions of dollars at stake, so they need a sure formula.

It's hard to make a movie that's very expensive and not be thinking of the results all the time.

We've ignored audiences all these years. We've just amused ourselves and hoped enough people would want to eavesdrop to make it all viable.

I would never make a film because I think it's going to be a box-office success.

If someone puts up $100 million on a movie, they're gonna be concerned about whether they'll get it back. So they're not gonna make a movie about three girls, you know?

You have kids studying master class visual arts who are pushed to make films that will be successful economically; that's what they focus on. So they work for corporate interest instead of artistic expression.

Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.

If my films don't show a profit, I know I'm doing something right.

Profit and bottom line, the contemporary mantra, eliminates the very source of architectural expression.

I don't have the luxury of making clothes just to make an effect. It can't be something totally frivolous, because my distributors have to have a successful season, too.

Today a picture has value if it makes a lot of money. Myself, I declare I want to make a picture to lose money. Really! I want to lose money.

The studio is spending great amounts of money, and they want some insurance they will get money back. They go for the middle of the road, broad in appeal. It's restrictive. It's a constant struggle, but if you give in, you're just making cottage cheese, and that's the end of it.

It seems there's a sliding scale between the money they spend on a movie and its creativity.

Money would be no object when compared with the value of the acquisition.

You come out of drama school and do theatre and are interested in creative endeavour, then you drift into TV and movies and realise that artistic endeavour needs to balance with financial success. There's no point spending millions on a movie that doesn't make any money, because the people producing it won't make another one.

Creativity should be balanced with commercial interests.

You can't make a film for your personal satisfaction. That is why I detest the cinema of people like Mani Kaul.

The only chance for a guy like me is to make a decent picture for a reasonable budget. If it brings in a profit for investors, maybe I'll have the opportunity to make something else.

The problem is some of our riskier films just don't make as much money. But if you only make films that will just be commercially successful, then you can also sink yourself as a studio.

I figure as an artist the best thing you can do is follow your heart - and if your heart is marketable, then you win.

Gene therapies and other treatments that can cure - not just treat - disease are going to be expensive. All of the cost of innovating and reaping an economic return may need to be recouped in a single payment.

You can't expect to connect with everybody, and that's all right. The more I make films, I'm learning that you don't have to make films for everybody. A film can be made for a smaller group of people than that, and it still warrants an existence.

I am all for high art but I owe it to myself to be clever about it and do commercial things too.