Dean Devlin Quotes

It would have been impossible to get 'The Verdict' off the ground without Paul Newman obviously, but today without any star, kind of a dramatic piece would be very tough.

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

Realistically, the chance of any book becoming a film is slim.

As long as somebody finances you, can make a film and get it seen any place and in any language; then, hopefully, it's a success.

The success of 'The Fighter' made it a lot easier to get 'Broken City' green-lit. And the buzz about 'The Fighter' also made it a lot easier to get 'Contraband' green-lit.

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

Then that did very well at the box office, so before you knew it, we were in a string of feature motion pictures. Then they announced that they were going to do some spinoffs of us.

It's fantastic to see 'Les Miserables' become the top-grossing film at the U.K. box office.

If I thought there was any hope of turning 'World War Z' into a movie, I wouldn't have written it as a giant, epic, global story, because that requires a giant, epic, global budget.

I certainly wouldn't mind if 'Jurassic Park' turns out to be commercially successful, and somebody says, 'Hey, you were in a box-office hit, and if you want to do another movie, we'll give you five million dollars to make it.'

Lots of movies don't kind of work as well as they do on the page.

In any film business, if you're trying to get your next film made, you would never say, 'Oh, my last film was a cult film.' I'd say, 'Oh, great, well I hope this one isn't!' I always say to Johnny Knoxville, 'How do you do it? You sort of do the same thing we did, except you made millions, and I made hundreds.'

It's fairly common to get something optioned but really rare to actually see it become a movie.

If I'm going to sell out, I'm going to sell out all the way, so a bid by the studio would be if you're going to go through the pain of trying to make a film, it's gotta be worth it.

The usual key to getting films made seems to be a producer's terrier-like determination not to let it go. Unfortunately, such producers often seem prone to sinking their claws into mediocre projects.

We did the original 'Stargate' as an independent movie. It was a surprise success. Shortly before the movie came out, the financiers who were frightened the movie might not do well sold the film to MGM. When the film came out, it was a hit and spawned TV shows.

I've also shot plenty of films with very small audiences - 'The Sun Also Rises.' I love that film, but I didn't capture the imagination of the audience. I don't know why.

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.

When Peter Jackson made the 'Lord of the Rings' movies, I remember there was a concern that people who didn't read Tolkien wouldn't go see the first one. But the films were so good in their own right that the audience grew beyond the readership of the book.

When I successfully bring the Mamas & the Papas movie to fruition, I hope that people will say, 'She's also a producer.'

I do believe that there are some films that cannot be made without stars.

The catch in the industry is that if you want to get a picture made for little money, you have to get a big star. But the two are usually mutually exclusive.

Making commercial cinema is very tough.

Ideally, I want my films to work because I want the people who have invested their money to get back their investment and make profits too.

I won't claim that I know it all, but I do know how much money is involved in making a Kannada movie. I've done my homework.