Tom Wilkinson Quotes

I don't think you can name a good picture where the production or the possible promotion isn't "cast-contingent." That means the film needs not just star power but star box office power.

Films that score very high with test audiences generally tend to not be so great. But, there's a lot of money involved in making movies, and it's a way for people to reassure themselves, who have spent money, and it's also a way to work out how to market a movie.

The movies have a way of seeping out there over time. We don't put them in 2,000 theaters. It wouldn't work that way.

A film like 'Good Night And Good Luck,' you make that for $7 million because you know it's a black-and-white film, and it's not an easy sell. If you make it for $7 million, then everybody can have a chance to make a little bit of money, and you get to make the film you want to make.

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

I have made a decision that in future, I will only take on movies that have a better than 75 per cent chance of being made, and that's not easy.

Male actors get into production, share profit, and they don't take money at times but are involved in some capacity which is economical and resourceful. These things suit them; as they have made a place for themselves, they have command over the box office.

Every four or five films we've made a film that has gone on TV first. It's quite nice to tap into the TV audience, but it is nice to see it on the big screen too.

I didn't even think anyone would want to make 'Cop Car,' and then I didn't think anyone would want to distribute 'Cop Car,' and then I didn't think anyone would want to see 'Cop Car.'

I'd be fine to make movies and have them never come out. But you have to deal with the business side. You can't get too emotionally invested, because again, you've got no control. There's going to be some huge film out that everyone goes to, and it probably won't be mine.

Joe Roth, who ended up becoming president of 20th Century Fox, he was the producer of Our Winning Season. This was one of his first movies. It's just a really great, great little film, a lot of good people in it. I don't know whatever happened to that movie, and why it didn't get the success it deserves.

You just never know when movies are going to take off or not. The lucky thing about this was that it didn't cost a lot of money, and therefore there wasn't loads of pressure on me.

While more great films are being made every year, it is increasingly difficult to get indies into theaters or on TV.

Hollywood executives believe that money is both the be-all and end-all to the moviemaking process.

Big studio comedies are such a headache.

When we were making the movie, winning awards for it wasn't the point at all. We didn't even have an American distributor.

When people slave over those scripts and pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for them, they don't usually want you to add farts.

Ironically, it's easier to raise the money to make the film than it is to have the film find wide distribution.

Financiers don't support their directors to cast properly. They don't have the vision of an artist. They're casting to spreadsheets, and it's making movies very mediocre. The movie business used to just be called the movies. Now it should be the business movies.

We don't decide how a movie will be distributed until it's finished. It might be on iTunes, it might be on 3,000 theaters, but we make that decision after the fact.

I learned some big lessons on my first film, a horror film which was never released in the U.S., even though we sold it to Harvey Weinstein for a lot of money.

I just hope, every now and then, the studios still slip one of my movies in.

The distribution systems and the cinemas have adopted to the blockbusters, and they now get their main income from selling popcorn, and if you don't make a film that sells popcorn, it's very hard to get it out there.

When I was out promoting 'Selma,' I became aware of so many other films that ought to be getting distribution. And this is a problem I can do something about because of my experience.

'Private Benjamin' was the first movie I produced, and I produced it for practical reasons.