When something is not liked by people, you cannot make it run, however big actor or producer you may be. The audience has to make it a hit. The power is in the hands of the public.
What we learned quite early on is what was really important to early British pop that we produced-and this is where we were distinct from almost everybody else in this respect-is that it had to reflect exactly what the audience wanted us to say.
When you're young, you look at television and think, there's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want.
Women are the best judges of anything we turn out. Their taste is very important. They are the theatergoers; they are the ones who drag the men in. If the women like it, to heck with the men.
If it's a drama or comedy, it doesn't matter to me. I just want to like the writing.
I mean, I find drama to be engaging and it makes your blood pressure go up and you keep watching, but it's not as entertaining as, say, comedy.
I'm doing the kind of show that I would want to see.
We work hard on every film, and then it's up to the audience whether they like it or not. At the end of the day, it is the audience wish what to accept and what not.
From time to time there is a move to do a little less in the way of period dramas, but people rebel. Audiences say we want them. There is a big hunger for them. I don't think it's sentimentality or nostalgia, it's often that they are simply the best stories.
I have a lot of respect for people who are great at ad-libbing and for writers and directors who are able to create a scene in which that works. Judd Apatow is fantastic at it. But as an audience member, I like the sound of something that's been written - I like it to sound written.
The audience loves watching masala films, and I love to make what the audience likes. I also think it is easy to make a masala film.
Who wants to see me as Hamlet? Very few. But millions want to see me as Frankenstein so that's the one I do.
In Telugu filmdom, audiences like to see their hero dance, fight and play a larger-than-life character. It's precisely why most of our commercial films do extremely well and get remade too.
I have been lucky that some critics joined the mob in loving something I've done, or in appreciating it. I've been lucky. But most of the critics don't like what the people like. I think they have a very strange job, and they are meant to criticize.
I've always said that, first and foremost, I make films for New Zealanders. They're my target audience. Then after that, if people appreciate my stories from outside this country, then that's an added bonus.
I have come East to find what the public likes.
My own sense and taste in 3D films has been I don't really like it when it feels like it's a gimmick and it's coming at me, it's flying at me.
People want to see blood. They don't care anymore if you can box for 12 rounds. They don't appreciate the art of the good boxer.
I don't want to write things that people don't want to read. I would have no pleasure in producing something that sold 600 copies but that was considered very wonderful. I would prefer to sell 20,000 copies because the readers loved it. When I write books I don't actually think about the market in that way. I just tell myself the story. I don't think I'm talking to a 10-year-old boy or a six-year-old girl. I just write on the level the story seems to call for.
People didn't suddenly wake up one morning and unanimously say 'I'm fed up with midbudget dramas. I'm only going to see action tent poles from now on!'
I think the form, the Hollywood movie, I think the quality is obviously always going to be there and I think that the question of taste, there's always a question of taste.
Any audience, as a rule, goes for a fast number.
I know doing movies is where I need to be. That's where my audience wants to see me.
If you care about who I want to write about, I'll write about the people you want to read about.
What is a hit? Who can tell? Who decides what a hit sounds like? I needed to remind myself that a hit is whatever people decide is a hit. I don't make hits; I make music. People make hits.
