Brian Helgeland Quotes

It's always once the script's done in the first two years if it doesn't get going somehow or another, I've never had an old script that someone's made later on.

It's very, very rare in this business [moviemaking] where a script lands on your lap ready to go.

I think if you get your fifth script made, that's the fast track. But there's no guarantee any of them will get made.

It's very difficult to find good scripts in Hollywood any more.

'Hardware' came about because I had written quite a few scripts and hadn't had any luck getting them made.

I have a pile of scripts at home that I love. Some of them are hard to get made. We have to give up stuff. It's hard to get movies made.

Great writing attracts great actors. It attracts money. Without a great script, you have nothing.

It's very hard to get a movie made. You could spend your life reading scripts that never got made.

Every film starts with the script.

I structure the scripts and work on them on films and work on scenes with writers and but I haven't written a script myself, I really respect what they do and I'm fortunate I get to work with people that I really enjoy working with and we all kind of spitball and work together on these things, but I haven't written a script yet.

And it is a folly to try to craft a novel for the screen, to write a novel with a screen contract in mind.

Not that I've always loved the movie when they finally come out, or if they ever come out-because many of them don't come out-but I've gotten to work with really good story editors and stuff like that.

I think of myself more as a filmmaker or as a film person than as strictly just a writer. I don't come out of playwriting or anything like that.

Fortunately, John Houseman is a marvelous writer and he sat in on so many story conferences. He worked with Welles, you know, and he's a marvelous man.

I wrote 'All is Lost' while editing 'Margin Call'. I did that long before I knew if I was ever going to get to make another movie.

Before 'Twilight' was greenlit, I had four projects at four studios. I worked super-hard on all of them, but 'Twilight' was greenlit first.

The 'Pan' script made it to the Black List in 2013.

I think a good script is a rare thing, and I think no matter who you are you have to fight for the good ones.

I remember the first script I wrote after 'Swingers' was a Western, and I just couldn't get it made.

I've written about 15 screenplays and they all sold - they were all sold on pitches.

It's difficult to get films made, especially films about poets.

I think I've had pretty good experiences for the most part with the people who have directed my screenplays.

After film school, I would write 8 hours a day on film and 8 hours a night on TV, and then sleep once and a while.

Howard Minsky had gotten the script to her agent prior to my involvement.

I have a lot of incomplete short films and incomplete scripts out there.