Justin Simien Quotes

You can make movies for a select audience, but you have to market it to them. You can make movies for a select audience, but you have to market it to them.

Toronto Film Festival is one of those festivals where there are 400 movies, and unless you have a distributor who is super confident and puts a lot of money into it, sometimes movies can go unwatched or unnoticed.

There's guys like me who aren't going to the theater, so distributors are leaving money on the table.

I think Warner Bros. are probably some of the best people in marketing films in the world.

You've got the movie, distribution, and marketing. All are equally important, so educate yourself on how to do the best you can at each of them.

Before any movie of yours gets made, it will be vetted by the studio's marketing department. So, you do have to answer the question: Who is your movie for?

I write box notes for Kino International, which specializes in distributing foreign films.

We made the joke when we screened 'Bucket List' that there was 100% desire to see amongst our demographic with a 40% ability to get them to see it.

The industry has to have the audience in order to make these films. So it's a serious thing - how do you get people to leave their houses and go to the theater?

There's a vast difference between marketing a movie and the movie itself. You try to cast as wide and broad a net as possible.

I feel the film companies should pay for proper advertising to see that the movie will sell, instead of putting it on our backs.

Movies are getting more and more expensive to distribute. You need a lot of money to get people into theaters.

I write R-rated action dramas, and every year that goes by, that gets to be a smaller and smaller world you have to work in. You have to think of how to get the studio excited and sell them something.

It's a big battle to bring quality stuff into theaters across America, for sure.

If the same energy went into marketing movies to women as they do on the other demographics we might see more of a spike.

While more great films are being made every year, it is increasingly difficult to get indies into theaters or on TV.

When you're promoting a film it's really interesting trying to gauge what people think about it.

The average movie-goer in this country sees six films in a year. That's one every two months. What the studios are trying to do is make sure it's their movie.

Film used to have to be niche and find its audience in a little art house cinema, and TV had to work for everybody. And now it's kind of flipped where there's so many platforms that TV can be incredibly niche.

I don't see a lot, but I think what the movie studios know and what they always know but they kind of ignore, which is that a there's an audience for movies like 'Get Out,' and 'Hidden Figures,' and to some extent 'Moonlight,' which made a lot less money than 'Hidden Figures' did.

The distribution systems and the cinemas have adopted to the blockbusters, and they now get their main income from selling popcorn, and if you don't make a film that sells popcorn, it's very hard to get it out there.

Cannes Film Festival prefers political films. We have to target certain festivals based on our films.

For every film that I have believed in - from 'Tanu Weds Manu' to 'Rehna Hai Tere Dil Mein' - it was very difficult to find producers.

Regardless of what film you make, you want people to watch your film, and you ultimately need commercial success.

Primarily, a festival is a platform to sell films that are not meant for the mainstream audience. Cultural exchange is also important aspect of a film festival.