Jason Blum Quotes

Failure is part and parcel of the process of experimenting with roles and films.

The nice thing about student drama is that you're allowed to get things wrong, because it doesn't mean no one will ever hire you again.

I love doing independent films, but it's very hard to make a living that way.

Of course, I'd like to produce and direct a blockbuster, but you gotta build up to that. So now I'm learning from a bunch of little movies. And it's more fun with smaller pictures. It's more creative.

When we did Wayne's World, it was 14 million dollars and they didn't bug us too much because they just thought it was some little movie that nobody was ever going to see. We showed them.

What happened on 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith,' I was given a big budget and given too many choices, and I made a lot of mistakes and missteps early on until I squandered all that extra money. But then, once my back was up against the wall, I made what I consider a really good movie.

Most people who've had a big hit movie like 'Paranormal Activity,' the next thing they say is, 'I want to make a $100 million movie.' I have no interest in making more expensive movies.

My dream is just to make zero-budget movies for the rest of my life, because I love that environment.

Every day, I'm trying to push the boundaries creatively, and sometimes it does push the boundary too far, and that's what I had to learn.

I've always felt that an independent film is a film that almost doesn't get made.

If anything, as a general rule, the cheaper the movie the more creative the experience, generally speaking. Its not to denigrate expensive movies. I dont want to seem biting the hands that feed me, but with big movies, especially with a lot of effects, the role of the actor is somewhat diminished.

In my career, I've never been a box office name. Granted, a couple of my movies have made a lot of money, but I'd do other movies which make very little money, or they're not seen that much.

I've been very lucky to work with great filmmakers. But I think my days of just freely acting regularly, that being my sole creative fulfillment, are gone.

There's some freedom that you get with indie films that you don't get with the big-budget ones. There's just a different style. I hope I can switch back and forth for the rest of my career, but I've kind of grown up on indies, and there's nothing better than working with these directors so closely and and being such a huge part of the process.

It kind of irks me that the studio films still have to be so safe even though they don't really cost as much to make.

I wonder if people who see 'Blade' will have even seen my other movies. But I don't want all my movies to be in a vacuum. I need a balance because one pays, and the other doesn't.

It is important to realize that the process of 'fostering' a passion takes trial and error. It takes experience; you cannot do it all in your head. And it takes a long time.

Nobody loses money on my movies. I make them cheap.

I wanted to try every style available to me - large productions, small productions, studio films, low-budget. You just can't sit around and wait for every big-budget film to come along.

No one can force you to do a film. I am responsible for the films I chose, hit or flop. I am where I am because of what those films taught me.

Cinema is a form of art, and like every other art form, cinema also needs freedom of expression.

Movies are not an art form where you get to kind of sit in your art gallery and paint, you know? You don't do that. You're spending a lot of somebody else's money.

Sometimes, people don't make the kind of films you want to do.

I guess, in a sense, 'Audition' was a film that gave me an opportunity that I hadn't had up until that point. So that's definitely one that is important to me. Then there's 'Visitor Q' that kind of taught me that there are some kinds of films that can only be made as low-budget films that really wouldn't work as anything else.

Give the composer time to experiment, time to try out ideas. Also, the time to fail. When the composer has very little time, the temptation is to reach for stock ideas - ideas they know will work and have worked in the past.