James Wan Quotes

While I always thought of making sequels to movies like 'Ghayal,' the filmmakers would almost always veto the idea.

With 'Insidious 2,' I wanted to push a potential franchise in the direction I thought it should go in.

It's always an interesting experience with the 'Saw' films, when a sequel comes out that I didn't have anything to do with, creatively, because here's this idea, this story, and this character that I created for James Wan, but now it doesn't need me anymore.

Being able to evolve great franchises over time is the foundation of world-class entertainment companies.

I think I've had a lot of experience with watching other people shepherd my ideas with the 'Saw' films. They made four 'Saw' movies without me. I never really had a protective or fierce policy towards that. I let it go.

When I first did 'The Fast and the Furious', I didn't want there to be a sequel on the first one. I thought, 'Why would you rush to do a sequel - just because your first film is successful?'

I think sequels are fine if there's a story, so I think when there is a property that is worthy of a sequel, it could very well happen!

That's always the trick with the sequels, is how much do you repeat from the first one. Because we all get bummed out when you go see a sequel and it's beat for beat.

I'm one of the lucky directors that pretty much every movie I've done has started a franchise. But I never think this way. I think that's the way you break it, if you go, 'then at the end, at the end we'll see you later.' I was forced to do it in 'Clash of the Titans.'

I don't think there will be another Ghostbusters. I think we're all too old to do it. I think we've done it a couple times and there is not that much to get out of it, to do that would be fresh in it.

I have been in 'Star Wars' since I was 20. And they're not just doing some goofy sequel, like, to service the hunger of it. It actually has been thought out and it has integrity and they took it seriously, which they didn't have to do, you know? It's hard to do, given the appetite and the angles from which everybody's coming at it.

As long as we, again, kind of keep earning the sequels with material and I'm confident Mike can, I'm in. You know I always want to do those. But I also want to keep going in some of the direction as Meet the Parents has.

'Evil Dead 1' was never supposed to have a sequel.

I mean, frankly, I'm not speaking as a representative of Disney or Pixar, I'm speaking as just myself as a filmmaker: I don't go into anything that often thinking about a sequel.

Of all the projects I've ever done, 'Stargate' is the only one from the beginning intended to be a trilogy. We always wanted to do parts two and three, but the thinking was they didn't want to do anything other than the TV series.

Up until 'Fast and Furious 7,' every movie I've made has been a film that I've created, franchises that I've created.

Fans are always talking about endgame as though endgame has been chosen from minute 1. I don't know that you could talk to a single series creator that would say confidently 'Where I started is where I finished, and there was no way in hell I was going to stray from that path.' 'Dawson's' being the perfect example.

It's very rare, in a movie franchise, where you have the same creative team behind the camera and in front of the camera, pretty much, for the entire growth of the franchise.

The thing I do miss about the way some sequels were in the past was that each film felt like its own unique, complete tone. Now, sequels are tonal facsimiles of the ones before them, like a television series, whereas back in the past sequels would often be radically different from the ones before.

The director makes the movie. The director has to have the story in their head, has to know the style of the piece, has to answer questions from actors, design, set, lighting, every department throughout the pre-production, production, and post-production, because they've got it in their mind. They've got to know exactly what they want and what the style and story of the movie is. It's them. They make it.

I'd love to direct, and I think I'd be a great director, but... I've been approved by the studio to direct, which I think is a cool jump of faith for them. Or proof that they're really stupid. But I don't think so.

I'm a director. My job is to think how I want to present it. If I want to say [lines] eight times or 10 times, a hundred, it's my choice. I have a certain vision. If you don't have the vision, you don't have the story, you can't be interviewed.

When you make a movie with Alejandro Amenábar, he very quickly... it was very clear you're kind of operating in his dream universe.

There were the usual types of things that happen, in a production, like logistical bullshit, and this and that and the other. That's the sort of stuff that happened. But I never felt, in a creative sense, that we were ever veering into a place that I hadn't signed on for.

Because Guillermo's [del Toro] obviously a painter painting a picture and my job is just to provide the color that he probably already has in his mind.