Bennett Miller Quotes

If I read the right script, if that script needs $5 million, if that script needs $50 million, I don't care. If I read a project that's beautiful, that I really want to make, whatever it needs, it needs.

Sometimes we'll only get one script in a year that we want to make that we feel is good enough.

If you're a producer, you always spend too much money because you want that shot - and you're willing to spend a bundle to get it.

Box office success has never meant anything. I couldn't get a film made if I paid for it myself. So I'm not 'box office' and never have been, and that's never entered into my kind of mind set.

The Weinsteins believe in test screenings. I don't. I don't think good films are made that way. Call me crazy, but I'd like to think you need a singular vision to make good art.

It creates a conflict of interest - what songs would I use for me, and what would I use for the band.

I sometimes think it's better to go with a bad movie that is true to a certain point of view than to take something and make people try to like it when they're not supposed to.

Some of my best experiences are with writer/directors. Guy Ritchie is one. I feel they have a clearer view of what they want to do. They haven't got to try and interpret someone's writing; it's all theirs. I really admire that.

If I get a note on my script or my films, what I say to a studio executive is that, 'You know, this is the film of my legacy, and I never want to be sitting in a theater looking up on the screen and seeing something that I don't believe in.' I will never do that.

I've cut myself out... I've cut scenes out that I was in and that's when you realize that you've got to make the best movie you can.

I could have made a small film and kept all the money from 'Life is Beautiful'. Instead, I spent more money than I had on 'Pinocchio', a very risky film.

I don't make movies because I think audiences will want to go see them.

I never set out to make a movie that was everything to everybody; if that were the case, we could all just take a picture of a tree and agree that the tree is beautiful and move on with our lives. I wouldn't even need to show up.

The only film I ever made for money was something called 'Music From Another Room', which I really didn't like.

But only if I believe that my directing talents will improve the material I'd be working on. I want to make sure I don't sacrifice beautiful material on the altar of my direction.

When you're actually making the film, you're constantly battling to maintain its integrity.

I always think of my films within the context of where aesthetics meet economics. That's the nature of making art - not being naive about what is possible and getting what you need to tell the story you want to tell.

I'm not mad about movies, there are too many people involved in the making of them, and they lack a definitive creative focus.

I had a sort of bad experiences as a playwright early on, when directors were putting in huge concepts that I didn't intend, or they were stylizing something that was compromising the play, so I started to think like, 'Well if I'm going to fight against this, I should learn how to direct.'

Dealing with those personalities and the people who run this music thing has been most challenging. It's hard to really communicate things to people who run a business yet forget the nature of the business. They only look at the bottom line and the financial return, you know, they forget what it is they're packaging. It's art.

The trick of making movies in this culture is how to not give up everything that makes them worthwhile in order to get them made - and that's a tricky balance.

Once you become a producer, you're really selling something. It is a control issue, because you don't really know how it's going to pan out, but the creative control makes it work it.

I'm satisfied with the way 'The Room' turned out, and I don't want to change anything.

I'm here to make good pictures. If I don't see it, I won't touch it. I may not make a good picture, but I still gotta believe in it!

When I did 'Stardust,' I was fighting the studio for things I believed were right.