Ben Wheatley Quotes

A lot of people get stuck, like, "Oh, if it's made by a studio, it can't be independent." Often they link it to the source of financing, or how it's distributed, but I don't really know how you can. A filmmaker will take his money from anywhere. It doesn't matter.

Before I made 'Sweetback,' I had a three-picture deal with Columbia and enough juice, if I was real clever with it, to proclaim that I wanted to do an independent film.

In the course of my movies, the financing and the releasing were always the tough part. Because I loved the creative, I loved the writing, I loved the making of it. Because I guess, I never had the giant blockbuster, I never got that sort of ease for the next one. So the next one was always, "how am I going to do this?" And that thing was sort of always the thing that made me a little chickenshit to go into the next one. The writing of it was great and the making of it was great, but how am I going to release this thing and am I going to find a studio?

The more unique your film is and unusual it is and difficult it is, the harder it is to get it financed. That's why a lot of good filmmakers are doing television. They do HBO movies.

A novelty in Polish filmmaking was that it was possible to find funds for a big production. However, at the same time, the state budget committed less and less money to filmmaking.

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.

You know, the people who do indie film and decide who gets those little budgets? They're mean, man. They're cold and very cool-oriented.

In Australia, they set up a special fund to kick films off. It was quite an enlightened sort of move. You could go to this government bureau with scripts and and get finance for films.

Shooting films in Britain is always difficult, because we've never got enough money to make them.

The traditional Hollywood system is pretty rigid, but the film scene in, say, South Africa is booming with a lot of possibilities. If you have the cameras and reasonable capital, you can put your film in theatres next to 'Guardians of the Galaxy.' A great example of that was Kagiso Lediga's film 'Blitz Patrole.'

I've never felt that my job was difficult because I'm a woman. It's a difficult job regardless, and it's even more difficult in Lebanon because there's no film industry. There's no structure, funding, or institutions for filmmakers.

My goal is to get a real film industry started in Washington. An actual one, not where features come to town and shoot second unit for a few days. I would love to get something started here. Hire local crews. People could work year-round and raise their families here.

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

It's not easy to make films that one wants to because it is not easy to find a producer that fast for the subjects I want to make. They are not hot cakes in the market.

After the blockbuster 'Magadheera,' I made a film with comedian Sunil as the hero. If I am interested in making a film - big or small - I will go ahead and make it.

I have never had the problem of finding a producer for my films. I think I am just lucky because my first film didn't do great box office business.

It is difficult to make movies on your own terms and also to make a film and convince somebody to have faith in it.

If you sell the film rights to your book, it doesn't mean there will be a film. I have sold the rights to five books and had zero films made. Take the money and be thankful.

You can't do anything yourself on TV... unless you have a LOT of money, but you can do an independent movie.

You cannot believe how hard it is to try and raise money for a film. I did it for six years and it was such a failure.

Making a film, I've learned, can be an exhausting process, due to the need for backing, distribution, etc.

One of the reasons the producers' credit has been so weakened in recent years, and given to people who didn't deserve it, was that people didn't understand what producers did.

My Toussaint [Louverture] film is in limbo. We still hope after all this time that we can find another way to get this film done.

When you produce and direct your own film you havethe somewhat consoling feeling that the producer will kill for you.

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