I want to remind people that we create films for the MMFF as gifts to them, not to see whose entry is better or which film earned more at the tills.
It's not simply that British films do well at the box office and generate revenue, it's that they provide a window to the world of what Britain and its culture is about.
Cinema is a worldwide phenomenon.
Just in the past few years - since I've been making movies, which isn't a very long time - you now have a culture that is fascinated and informed about the box office in a way that sometimes filmmakers weren't even.
Mystery makes movie stars! If you see someone on the cover of the weeklies all the time, why would you want to pay to see them in a movie?
Content is now the most import factor that decides a film's success at the box office, so we as filmmakers are all trying different stories.
When you finish a film, before the first paying audience sees it, you don't have any idea. You don't know if you made a success or a flop, when it comes to the box office.
After all those years in Asia, I don't have to do promotion anymore. We just release a Jackie Chan movie and - Boom! - people go.
'Cabaret' was the most commercial success that I've been involved in.
I never said that movies were struggling behind TV. I'm just saying that movies have a better creative cache.
When you make a film, you will either make money or won't.
And one thing Hollywood does well is sequels.
That's realism: a fact that if the audiences don't move out and watch good films at the theatre, people will stop making them.
You could say that Iron Man was a second-tier character, and it turned out very successfully. I simply think it's down to the movie itself, and whether people enjoy the movie, are involved in the movie, and that it entertains them. From that point of view, the movie has to stand alone.
My fourth movie, 'PKP2,' is my biggest release and biggest success.
You always want your movies to reach the widest audience possible.
Look, I'm not a blockbuster star.
When you're involved in those big-budget movies, there's a lot of hype: 'Oh this is gonna be a big hit!' And 'A Christmas Story' wasn't. It came and went and was a big disappointment at the box office.
I've had movies bomb with terrible reviews, I've had movies make a lot of money with terrible reviews, I've had movies get good reviews and make money. And I like it best when the movies do well and the reviewers like them.
Now it really is, believe it or not, 90% of the films are green lit, not by the studio heads, but by the marketing department.
You can't ignore the system and the power you acquire as an actor if you're in films that are successful.
They thought in terms of: whatever you had that started you at the box office, this was it.
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.'
People will say a movie bombed at the box office but I couldn't care less.
Ninety per cent of my movies were hits.
