People don't realize enough how important and influentical John Carpenter has been in electronic music. He did his soundtracks by himself, using mostly electronic and analog synthesizers. He's a cult figure with DJs these days for good reasons.
To be involved with movies that become kind of cult classics... I've been very fortunate. 'The Warriors' is certainly a cult classic, and 'Xanadu' is, to a certain degree, a cult classic as well.
A cult classic is one that has been fully embraced by an alternative audience, not the popular audience.
Usually, the worst films become cult films.
For whatever reason, every project I do becomes sort of a cult, or a cultish show, you know, like 'Battlestar,' or even a film I did years ago, 'Kalifornia,' people refer to it as a cult film.
'Hook' became a cult classic without all the lore.
Cult movies are basically movies Hollywood missed the first time - that they should have gotten - and then the fans got it and made it successful.
'Bubba Ho-Tep' was an accidental story that turned out to be my first film adaptation, and it's still going strong in story and film.
'Wet Hot American Summer' was sort of lowbrow genius, you know? But smart in its cultish silliness. It wasn't considered something of great cultural caliber. But like many cult pieces, it sort of became something culturally relevant, which I think is what's so wonderful about it.
'Company' has become a cult film. When people see me at the airport, and when I travel, they call me 'Companywala.'
Along with 'Wet Hot American Summer' and 'The Room,' 'Lebowski' belongs in the canon of nouveau cult classics.
I've made movies that nobody saw initially, and then, all the sudden, people over the years pick up on it. Like 'Spinal Tap' and 'Princess Bride.'
Of course, the whole Andy Kaufman angle was classic. I'm real proud of that. I mean that is something people are still talking about 20 years later, making movies about and that sort of thing. I mean not a day goes by that someone doesn't mention Andy Kaufman to me.
As a director, it's my job to provoke, and when people decided 'The Room' be called a phenomenon, or whatever you call it, it's fine with me.
The word 'cult' is almost a nice way of saying a lot of people hate you, or have never heard of you. It means someone can come up to me in the street who's really into my stuff, who's seen everything I've done, but the guy standing beside them has no idea who I am. Even in Glasgow. I think that's cult.
If you're going to be a myth or want to be a myth, you'd better die young.
'Clue' was a big flop when it came out, but it became a... It's a movie that almost everyone references with me, now, when I run into people.
