Eric Fellner Quotes

For the most part, studio movies have huge budgets. They don't do anything under 30 to 40 million. When you have that much money at stake, you have so many people breathing down your neck.

It's very hard for a studio to take a chance on a piece of original material. They used to have the fall-back of DVD sales. They had ways in which they could safely make an investment in a piece of original material, and those opportunities aren't necessarily there anymore.

I would like to do more feature work. I intend to do that. To be really honest, it's an economic thing because when you make a film that doesn't make what it cost back, it's very difficult to get back in the ring.

It's arguable whether a hit song is gonna add to the business a film does. There are plenty of films that didn't do any business and sold a million albums.

Just because there are celebrities in a movie, it doesn't mean anything. I don't think The Ant Bully did all that well the first week at the box office. Compare the movies that have a lot of celebrities with the Jimmy Neutron movie, which had no celebrity voices and grossed almost one hundred million dollars.

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.

A financial shift happened with 'Facing the Giants' and 'Fireproof,' where movies that were faith-based films were profitable. And people in Hollywood - like people in downtown U.S.A. - are out to make money.

Making a big commercial movie is hard when you think about how many of them flop.

When you do bigger films, the financiers take more risks.

Hollywood is going to have to find a way of meeting those profit goals.

To me, the box-office is basically the cost of film. If your film costs so much and your box-office is so much and a bit more, you are okay.

The movie business is a big gamble.

Everybody's trying to make blockbusters.

I thought 'Deliverance' was a very good film. But it didn't have the success financially that 'Smokey and the Bandit' did, although that film made more money than 'Star Wars' in the first week.

Film is not just about the art form but also how it fares at the box office.

Box office does matter. One cannot ignore it.

I think no one really knows for sure what will work at the box office. Even big production houses don't know what will do well and what won't.

Foreign distribution is a major aspect of financing films. If you're flooding an entire country with cam rips DVDs before the movie is released, that will affect the bottom line eventually.

What is a commercial film? I think every film is commercial, as every film makes money.

It is true that no matter how good your film is, you get judged purely on the basis of how well it does at the box office.

If you screw up five films straight, then you're done. It's a business, the producer invests money and you need to make sure his money is recovered and in the process you give out the best film.

I don't believe in the 100 crore club.

As long as your movies don't lose money, you'll always be able to make them.

It is funny now, but in the beginning of my career, some of the films failed at the box office, and filmmakers stopped casting me, saying I am bringing bad luck to their film.

Multiplex cinema culture has created a level-playing field for directors where small budget movies are able to break even, even make profit.