Shane Dawson Quotes

If you look at film, distribution is pre-bought. If you've paid for the distribution, you say, 'I have to make sure it's a film that gets enough butts in the seats.' I think that's the problem: It becomes prohibitively expensive, and you can't develop films for a smaller amount of money.

As soon as you're at the higher levels of budgeting, you've got to get the film made, and the only way to support the film is to have actors who can support the budget.

In big movies, interests are not aligned between those above the line and the financier, because above the line gets paid whether the movie works or not. The financier only makes money if the movie works, and that fundamentally sets up a contentious relationship.

Content financing is a difficult beast no matter what era of Hollywood we're talking about.

Let's face it, making movies is all risk. Most of the time, batting average-wise, the reward does not outweigh the risk.

Historically, filmmakers always fall in love with every frame, but now that even neophytes are given final cut, this love affair carries with it serious economic implications.

If studios don't get their money back, we don't have any movies. So it is important that films are successful, and I am fully supportive of that because I'm not just a director, I'm also not stupid. I've been in this business long enough and, to a certain extent, I'm a businessman; I know the importance of that.

I think, on a larger note, that filmmakers and studios should start to tuck it in a little bit, because films wouldn't have the pressure they have if the word wasn't out about how expensive they were.

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.

Jokes apart, people are constantly asking me, 'What are you doing for the industry?' When one makes a blockbuster, you plough back money into the industry. If my film makes 100 crore, I'm not taking the entire sum home! It gets distributed between the exhibitors, distributors, producers and actors.

My partner, Beth Alexander, and I want to produce smaller films, but commercially viable films that will enable me to make the kinds of movies I want to make.

Market forces impose certain rules before a film can actually get made.

Now it really is, believe it or not, 90% of the films are green lit, not by the studio heads, but by the marketing department.

And usually the studios they don't want you to have credit for your movies because they want to take credit for the movies because if you get credit for your movies they've got to pay you more.

Trying to convince Warner Bros. to make a $30 million 'Veronica Mars' movie just wasn't going to happen, for understandable reasons.

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

It used to be the case that studio executives like Robert Evans, Darryl Zanuck, and David Selznick would put aside money for what they wanted to be great movies regardless of whether they would perform well with the box office.

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

I've seen it happen with other directors. Sometimes there's a period where, if they're lucky, they get the financing where they can make two films in a year.

I never think about the budget of the film.

With major films costing hundreds of millions of dollars to make, Hollywood is an industry that tends to repeat patterns when they make money.

At the end of the day, there is a lot of money that gets put into films.

Australia, most of the filmmakers there write a film and they direct it. There's a lot of writer/directors there, because nobody wants to write a script and then let it go when they've had that much of a personal investment to it, because you're not getting paid huge amounts of money in Australia to direct.

In making a movie, you're part of a big machine. Even in a small movie there are still so many people involved in the process, and it costs so much money to make. There is so much more invested in it for a lot of different people, so much money is sunk into it that they usually want some guarantee or promise that it's going to be able to do something on a financial level. There's just a lot more messing with you in film. I love movies and I love to watch movies and being a part of the whole film experience.

Not many people get that chance to have multiple studios wanting you to make a movie with them.