Alex Kurtzman Quotes

Of the 60 movies I wrote, more than half were written in two weeks or less.

Typically on a TV series, the writers on a show are writing for their life almost every episode. When someone sits down to write a Netflix show, they know there's going to be a 13th hour.

That's the great thing about a series: you're driving to work, and you have an idea for a story for your characters, and you can go into work, and it's gonna be a television show. I mean that's what's great about the job.

I write 2,000 words a day when I write. It sometimes takes three hours, it sometimes takes five hours.

Barton Fink got written very quickly, in about three weeks. I don't know what that means.

In a movie, you work three months to tell a story that happens in two hours. In a Mexican soap opera, you work one day to make a story that's an hour and a half. So you can see the difference in the quality of the project.

There's no deadline that a movie has to be made by. We have to believe that we have served the responsibility, however long it takes us to get to that point.

I've been lucky enough that in the U.K., I've done shows that have aired once a week. I make a show there that runs seasonally, and we make one episode a week, and that is great - the value of time. You can really think and finesse what you want to do.

Usually, I concentrate on work for a certain time, and finish when I clear a standard I set myself. But with 'Mononoke,' the production was so drawn out, it took forever to finish to my satisfaction.

You have more time to work in movies. My experience with movies is that you have more time to experiment with the character and camera angles and things like that.

I write fast, because I have not the brains to write slow.

What happened on 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith,' I was given a big budget and given too many choices, and I made a lot of mistakes and missteps early on until I squandered all that extra money. But then, once my back was up against the wall, I made what I consider a really good movie.

If I spend time at the front of the process worrying about connecting themes, then I won't write the best songs.

Sequels are generally done in a rush. They're done with a sense of urgency. The first time, you spend a long time developing to get it over the line. The second time, you don't. Your expectations are different, and your motivations are different.

If you're writing a screenplay for a feature, you don't have any involvement with the casting process, the editing process, the set design, the costume design, or any of that stuff.

I don't know much about making films or TV programs, but what's cool about being in the studio is that you have more time.

I produce more movies than I write, but when I write, it is such an immersive, intense process that it probably takes as much or more time than producing multiple movies.

Matthew Wiener on 'Mad Men' writes the entire series before they start shooting, and if you have that, then what you can do with character and story is not at all unlike what you can do in a novel.

I usually take up short films when I am not tied up with feature films. Short films are easier to work on... because it doesn't take much of your time. The number of shoot days are lesser as compared to feature films.

When we make a film like 'TWM Returns,' it is important that we don't think of bettering anything. It's like a baby being born: all you can hope for is the best. But you can't decide how the baby is going to look. Similarly with the movie - you can't think of making it better; you only can think of making the best film possible.

A producer friend of mine from film school had read some of my early screenplays - some experiments I had done to see how fast I could write something.

I always idealized the mainstream cartoonists and the packed schedule they worked under.

There are problems in doing television that have been plaguing me for years. I really like to have a lot of time, to rehearse and make things as good as they can be, but television often doesn't allow for that.

The thing about our movies is, we write thirty drafts. That's a very detailed script. Which means that if you try to crank it out week to week in television, it's impossible.

I discovered, to my surprise, that writing for live television made me a faster writer.