Michael Lehmann Quotes

Obviously if you're Coppola going into 'Apocalypse Now' off the back of the two 'Godfathers,' you're in a much better position than coming off the back of something like 'Dust Devil,' which had scarcely been released, and was pretty much lying around in film cans in different places.

Being a producer, I deal with a lot of different directors, and some of them would drive me insane with all the different histrionics, and the mystique that they carry.

There's no such thing as an actor giving positive criticism to a director. The minute you say 'Don't you think it would look nicer...', that director's going to hate your guts. Particularly if it's a good idea.

In Korea, the director is on top, and the power flows down vertically. On the set, I love to come up with ideas on the spot. But in Hollywood, if I were to come up with a certain idea on set, the idea had to be taken to all these different people who had to agree.

It was exactly what was released two months later with the exception of a couple of reaction shots which we went back in to get. I liked the movie very much and asked him what the studio's problem was. I felt that he was at a point where they might have worn him down.

The struggle of making a film for any studio is the fact that the producers and the studio have an idea of what the movie should be, but that is especially the case when the director is being replaced three weeks before principal photography. The challenge for me was to make sure that was my version of 'The Wolfman.' And I've done that. I think.

I have made a decision that in future, I will only take on movies that have a better than 75 per cent chance of being made, and that's not easy.

If you have 130 people on set, all with different opinions, sometimes it's going to kick off. There might be some people who say I'm a big problem to work with - that you couldn't tell me anything - but hopefully, they don't.

As an actor, I was often shielded from the big-picture decisions. But as a producer, I experience all the conversations where there's pushback or a difference of opinion.

The hardest part, for me, is being in the band and knowing the way I want certain things to sound, but also having to listen to opinions, and very valid opinions, of my bandmates. So, sometimes, I'll have to have conversations with them as a producer and then conversations with them as a bandmate.

Stars have no say in the release of a film. There are too many factors involved.

The move to turn a director was a very important decision and totally uncalled for, especially after my experience of 27 years as a producer.

'Sweetback' represented an economic tour de force because I had no partners; I own it.

I became a producer because of projects I wanted to pursue and develop as a director or actor.

Michael Bennett, Tommy Tune and Agnes de Mille fought to be director-choreographers. They were just not going to do it any other way because the choreographer is so often at the bottom of the creative totem pole when you put a show together. So with that power you get a more direct point-of-view and that helps something called style.

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.

I've had to tell people that I'm not co-writing. I don't want to do it and that's that.

I have a problem with writer/directors, personal. I can't work well with both of them on the set, if both of them are giving instructions. Writers tend to be in love with what they wrote. You can't always translate the words into the meaning, sometimes the meaning is better served without the words, difficult to make a writer to try to understand that. It gets, sometimes, tense.

Sometimes shows suffer from having many cooks in the kitchen.

And often when things turn to TV series there are so many different people with different agendas that things can morph. And so, you know, that was why having the executive producer title was important to me because even if I was the star and I had a concern, you know, that concern would only go so far. But having the title of executive producer actually makes them have to actually listen to me complain.

Directing was a big learning experience for me because I had to deal with every aspect of everything-all this constant decision-making, with people asking you questions at every moment, and you have to have answers for them all.

The problem of leadership is inevitably: Who will play God?" Muad'Dib

I had the opportunity to work with Aliens and Predators when Resident Evil 2 was being made and it was for two different studios. It was for Fox and Sony. They don't care about one another. They just want their movies. So it was very difficult to delay one and... So I had to make a very painful decision to kind of step away from directing the second movie and with the third movie it was the same.

I make the joke, all the time, that if you have the word "man" and a number in the title, like Batman 2, Spider-Man 2 or Iron Man 12, you'll get it made. The kind of movies I make, studios don't make them. I've made a lot of movies, and at Castle Rock, we've made 125 movies. None of them get made at a studio. I've got to scrounge around for money, every time. I just like to tell stories. I'm a storyteller, so I want the most people to see it.

I'd be fine to make movies and have them never come out. But you have to deal with the business side. You can't get too emotionally invested, because again, you've got no control. There's going to be some huge film out that everyone goes to, and it probably won't be mine.