Sriram Raghavan Quotes

If someone puts up $100 million on a movie, they're gonna be concerned about whether they'll get it back. So they're not gonna make a movie about three girls, you know?

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've been in enough films where the studio wanted that extra little cuteness to make it sellable.

Stupidly, in our industry, producers pay precious money to sign stars whom they might not even use in the film. Producers believe stars make hits; actually it is the script that makes a film successful.

Horror movies make a lot of money in India.

I want to make sensible commercial films.

Mid-range to low-budget movies have to have a name in the lead to get financing for it.

My taste in films doesn't lead financers to think they are going to make a zillion dollars.

If you want your film to be instantly green-lit, your first approach is not to go to a relatively unknown English actor. They're not going to throw millions of dollars at you for that.

I don't really have much to prove. I can easily go in a comfort zone, make two films a year, hype them because I've signed them as a star, make them cheap and they will be big hits.

The big-budget blockbuster is becoming one of the most dependable forms of filmmaking.

I think they quite like me when I work because I'm one of the safer directors to back, because even if my films don't bring their costs in back home, once they're shown outside of India they manage to cover the costs.

Sometimes I only hope to make a good popcorn movie.

I think feature film can be quite conservative, because you have to now get audiences to come out, and it's quite a hard thing to do. Of course, television can be conservative too.

I want to do Hindi films, but a proper one and a good production. I'm even open to multi-starrers because those work better in Bollywood. But it should be with only Bollywood technicians, not the South Indian team. There's no point to my going to Bollywood if I work with the same artistes and technicians.

I think it's always hard to find great roles, no matter what age you are. So I always say to people, 'You have to remember that Hollywood is in the business of making movies that they can sell tickets to; they're not in the business of finding great roles for actors.'

Sometimes it's very difficult to do a movie that's good and then have that movie make it to the light of day.

Everybody's trying to make blockbusters.

It kind of irks me that the studio films still have to be so safe even though they don't really cost as much to make.

A lot of the reason the Universal version of 'Heights' went away is that they were afraid they didn't have a big enough Latino star to bankroll this movie. The people I dealt with at the studio who wanted to make this movie were very passionate about it.

It's great to make strong, powerful films, but in terms of people wanting to finance them, it's also very difficult.

Hollywood is a world where the only thing that gets green-lit is something that made money the last year.

I don't believe in the 100 crore club.

I'm looking for films that can resonate and hopefully have some level of critical importance but also have commercial viability and can put butts in seats. At the end of the day, that is the name of the game. And if you can find that perfect balance, then that's the sweet spot.

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.