Film Distribution Quotes

Here's the thing about movies, all movies end up on television. That's their life. Whether you like it or not, I don't care how much money you spend on it, or how big or broad the film is, or who the actors are in it, eventually it's all coming out of the box.

You always want your movies to reach the widest audience possible.

Let's face it; people are doing everything online these days. So if they are going to watch my movies, I'm happy as long as it's being bought legally and being exhibited legally, as long as they are paying even a small fee for it. I'm just anti-piracy. If it's a legitimate way of watching film online, then I'm very happy.

When I was out promoting 'Selma,' I became aware of so many other films that ought to be getting distribution. And this is a problem I can do something about because of my experience.

Everyone who makes a film is at the major distributors' mercy.

It is great to be a part of big-budget movies, but it is harder to feel like you are contributing, in the sense that it has such big machinery behind it.

I don't think you can name a good picture where the production or the possible promotion isn't "cast-contingent." That means the film needs not just star power but star box office power.

Filmmaking is a very complex form - ya know, acting, lighting, screenwriting, storytelling, music, editing - all these things have to come together.

Even in Haiti, I saw John Wayne movies. American cinema has always been the dominant cinema throughout the world, and people tend to forget that. People aren't just seeing these films in California or Florida. They're seeing them in Haiti, in Congo, in France, in Italy and in Asia. That is the power of Hollywood.

Unfortunately my career began in Hollywood, doing a negative pickup for Universal pictures.

I learned that you can make a sci-fi film that is satisfying overseas. European people have everything in check. I'd make every sci-fi film in Europe. They only work 14 hours a day. After that, it's overtime.

I remember exiting the birth canal and suddenly I was in a film. But you are never really in charge of that. The movie came out about five or six months ago in America. It was Miramax in the States and Disney here [fakes falling asleep]. What happened. I love working for Disney, not Walt specifically because he couldn't be more dead, but the company is fantastic.

In the first week of release, 'Beasts Of No Nation' was the most watched movie on Netflix, in every country we operate in.

After I made my first short film that wasn't terrible, people were interested in potentially developing a feature with me. Every time I read a script, it was a bizarre, too-dark, genre-less thing that no one wanted to make.

It's a terrible thing to make films that are never seen or experienced by audiences. Often times nobody knows about them, even though they are great films. They are not promoted and that's really sad.

I was on Warner Bros. for a minute.

Since 'Qismat' did well independently, it was embraced by Bollywood.

I just saw 'Tiny Furniture' and became so obsessed with it that Judd Apatow jokes that I'm the distributor of it. I was making copies and giving them out.

Today, filmmaking isn't just about shooting and releasing. You've to structure the marketing of a film.

Today films are made to cater to commercial markets created by multiplexes, not for those who enjoy good cinema.

Once the film is released, once my job is over, I can't see the film again.

In feature film world I'm very much...a hired hand. It's a world of Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts, Mel Gibson - they're able to produce and to star and it's, that's not my world.

Cannes Film Festival prefers political films. We have to target certain festivals based on our films.

I think it took us all by surprise. I mean, I knew that people in New Zealand would like [Hunt for the Wilderpeople], but no one really anticipated how much they would embrace it as it is. And it's playing widely in Australia now; they're running it as well. It's going to be interesting to see how it does it in the States, but I think if Sundance was any indication, I imagine it could do well.

When you work in film, you learn to appreciate a distributor. You can have this great little film, but if you don't have a distributor, you are sitting in your living room with a great little film.