Matt Reeves Quotes

I'll still make movies for studios, but my editing process will be much further removed from the studio system. Because I don't understand it. I don't understand the whole testing-numbers thing. It is not how I want to make movies. So if that's how they do it, then I don't think I want to do it.

If I can make the movies I want, people are going to watch it how they're going to watch it.

On the last couple of movies I made - big-budget Hollywood movies - I really missed being able to create my own material.

When I make movies, I don't ever go out there to please anyone other than myself. I never try to make a film for the masses. I just try to tell my story.

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

Anyone who thinks Peter Jackson would fall for market forces around him rather than artistic integrity doesn't know the guy or the body of his work.

When we do a movie with the studios, they wouldn't be asking us to do it, I don't think, if it was a movie they wanted to get into themselves. What you see is what you get with us, so they let us do what we want to do.

If you can get your movie made the way you want to get it made, no matter what the end result is going to be, if people are going to see it, that's awesome.

You hear it said time and time again by successful directors: You have to make a movie for yourself. Don't make it for anyone else.

I'd love more production houses to encourage artists to create what they want and not just churn things out.

Having been subjected to the pigeonholing of Hollywood myself, I realized that once you become a studio-approved director, your chances of ever making your own film again are zero. You make the films that the studio wants you to make.

I always say that I'm a filmmaker, not a factory. I don't have to churn out films every six months.

Making independent films is liberating. It eliminates self-censorship, which mainstream films are infected with due to commercial priorities.

My biggest obstacle is trying to keep the music pure to what I want to release. I don't want any corporate suit telling me what story to tell.

I feel like if you let someone else create your vision, then it's not true to your band. No one can ever do as good as you want, or as good as you can yourself.

I only want to make movies I want to see. That may mean my career is somewhat limited, but that is my version of integrity. No matter how it performs or how it's received, I can be okay with it.

My good films were independent and my bad films were not.

I've never believed in cheapening music by going according to what some people think is public taste.

I don't have this feeling like, 'Oh, I want to live in the United States and make movies and become famous just because the money is here.' I like to make movies that tell stories that I care about.

There's a few movies I wanted to do, and I didn't get to do them partly because they wanted me to be part of the horse and pony show, getting the money, and I'm just not doing that. There's a few movies that people wanted me to do, but they were too safe.

What you're really after when you see a film or listen to a song is a singular vision, and I'm not sure how much of that you really get in Hollywood.

When I'm writing music, I'm not playing a character. I'm not Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons or someone like that, who has acknowledged that they are writing music for a character.

You don't always just have to do an indie movie to feel like you're controlling it with a few people that you really have connected with, creatively. You can do it on a bigger scale.

Independent films, for the most part, to me, are not so independent. They often feel like people auditioning for a big commercial career. They often do not have independent spirit to them.

I never do anything to strictly satisfy a fickle, ever-changing commercial world. I do the music I like to play. It's the only way I feel comfortable existing in the industry.