Bill Duke Quotes

I think that there's a lot more freedom in the low budget, the independent films where, unfortunately, you don't have the money, necessarily, to get the orchestras in there to play a lot of stuff. But, you have a lot more freedom, very often.

I hope to make movies that are so small they don't need to make anything to be profitable.

When we did Wayne's World, it was 14 million dollars and they didn't bug us too much because they just thought it was some little movie that nobody was ever going to see. We showed them.

At the end of the day, the less money you have, the easier it is to make a movie.

Most people who've had a big hit movie like 'Paranormal Activity,' the next thing they say is, 'I want to make a $100 million movie.' I have no interest in making more expensive movies.

How can you compare 'Hollywood Shuffle,' financed through the director's credit cards, and 'Apocalypse Now?' You have to take into consideration the conditions under which it was made.

Even with a big budget, you can make a niche film.

You definitely want to do the little films. They're always going to be harder, but you don't do them to make money. You do them so you can see what you can make with the research that you have.

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 don't make movies thinking: 'Oh, this is going to be a huge box-office hit.'

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

Once you make a studio 700 million dollars or so, or whatever the insane number is, then they finally seem to trust you, no matter how off-the-wall your project is.

I tend to make low-budget movies but, yeah, I make more money than I ever thought I would make.

Usually, I make such small-budget films that I can't afford to buy weather.

When Silence of the Lambs did well commercially it was more than anything. My partner Ed Saxon and I were just so relieved that finally we had made a movie that had made some money!

More personal films, you could make them, but your budgets would be cut down.

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.

Who says that big-budget films are safer than mid-range films? In terms of return on investment, I'd rather have 'Sling Blade' and 'Shine' than 'Volcano.'

You end up giving up half your salary every time you make a movie because you need the money to make the movie you have in your head.

I just want to make films that have enough of a budget to pull off high-level imagery but also have a budget that is low enough that I can do what I want.

The cool thing about those small-budget movies is that there's a tremendous amount of freedom the filmmakers have since there's less money at stake.

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.

I bow down to the altar of genre, because it allowed me to get 'The Witch' financed.

I produced 'Highway' and 'Chhichhore' for creative satisfaction.

I guess, in a sense, 'Audition' was a film that gave me an opportunity that I hadn't had up until that point. So that's definitely one that is important to me. Then there's 'Visitor Q' that kind of taught me that there are some kinds of films that can only be made as low-budget films that really wouldn't work as anything else.