Terry Gilliam Quotes

If I give five flops, I won't get a job. You have to perform at the box office when you are at the top. No one is running a charity here. People are putting huge amounts of money to make movies, and they want the films to be successful. They have invested money in you, so it is your duty to make sure the film does well.

Movies are the shadiest business in the world.

Just in the past few years - since I've been making movies, which isn't a very long time - you now have a culture that is fascinated and informed about the box office in a way that sometimes filmmakers weren't even.

Now both my films have been number one at the Australian box office and it took about two years just to get the finance for this film, so if it's hard for me then God help everyone else.

The only difference from one $100 million budget film to another is which of the 12 box stars are getting $20 million to be in it.

Movies are the biggest export in the world, the biggest American export. It influences people all over the world.

Films must all have the same structure. All of this to guarantee box office bonanza, which of course it never does, but that's another discussion entirely.

Movies, obviously, are a little more lucrative. The initial paycheck is better.

Unless a Western's made money - doesn't matter who made the money, doesn't matter what the subject is - if the last one didn't make any money, you can't make another one for a four-year period. Westerns more than any genre.

My mother was keen that I complete my graduation and never ever wanted me to be in the movies, as my father had made five films that lost money. One of the films he made was 'Agneepath,' which was hugely hyped but underwhelming at the box office, and I remember that my dad had to sell my grandmother's flat to pay off the loan.

What makes a movie now is a package, a brand, a remake or some preexisting material.

When a film company is in the red they come to me. Always it is the same.

I think a lot of Hollywood is in retreat right now trying to figure out how to make money and make the safest bets.

I grew up in L.A., and I worked for 'The Hollywood Reporter.' I knew enough about the business to know that the usual role of the author on a movie is to get out of the way and not say anything.

I don't want to produce anymore small or independent movies because it's just too hard these days.

I've seen too many ups and downs in the movie industry.

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.

That's the way this business works: if your movies do well at the box office, you will be offered more movies. It doesn't matter if you're a nice guy or you're a prick. If your movies do well, there's a job waiting for you in Hollywood. It's not any more complicated than that.

Then if your movie clicks with real audiences, you'll be sucked into some sort of Hollywood orbit. It's a devil of a place where the only religion that really counts is box office.

Today it's not culture; it's box office.

The thing about movies these days is that the commerce end of it is so inflated and financiers are just expecting this enormous return on their investment.

'The Book of Love' is the kind of James L. Brooks mainstream movie that the majors are ignoring.

It was a different time in the 1970s. Movies didn't have to make as much money.

So many movies get made, and so many go to VOD, which is a market I admire.

I always thought, like everyone, that Hollywood was a superhero factory.