Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made.
Over the years, I have realized that there's more to a film's fate than just good acting and a solid script. It needs to be marketed well. It's the package that sells - the songs, action, actors, etc.
If I had unlimited funds, wall space and storage, I would collect a lot more things, like 'Planet of the Apes,' 'Star Wars,' science fiction stuff, autographs, and prop guns and weapons. I have to draw the line somewhere.
Then that did very well at the box office, so before you knew it, we were in a string of feature motion pictures. Then they announced that they were going to do some spinoffs of us.
I have heard of 'Green Street'-dedicated birthday parties, a website dedicated only to the clothing. It has no end. If you hashtag #greenstreet or #greenstreethooligans, you cannot go a day without people saying it's their favourite movie. It's frustrating because it's a massive hit, but nobody gives it credit.
Well that's the point: People don't normally take away things from films anymore. You go and see a $100 million film, half an hour later, your biggest concern is what are you going to be eating.
I've been very lucky. All I wanted was to pay the rent. Then these characters took off and suddenly there were Hulk coffee mugs and Iron Man lunchboxes and The Avengers sweatshirts everywhere. Money's okay, but what I really like is working.
An A's fan made me a Darth Vader helmet but painted in A's colors.
I am a huge fan of all things Mondo, and when the opportunity to illustrate a Mondo print celebrating the 'Deadpool' film presented itself, I leapt at the chance!
So much of the downstream revenue is linked to that initial excitement, to how much revenue is produced in the domestic box office. For example, what we pay for a film three years later is highly correlated to how well it did in the box office.
I'm not bragging but my movies have grossed well over a billion dollars.
I'm really into acquiring film paraphernalia - that's my hobby. I love old movie posters, cameras and film reels.
We did the original 'Stargate' as an independent movie. It was a surprise success. Shortly before the movie came out, the financiers who were frightened the movie might not do well sold the film to MGM. When the film came out, it was a hit and spawned TV shows.
Leave a movie audience inspired, and they will want to ingrain that movie into their lives with the toys, branded food products, soundtracks, and clothing they buy.
I had this maroon 'Lion King' tracksuit that my mum couldn't take off me. I wore it until the sleeves ended at my elbows and the trousers ended at my knees.
Han Solo would never wear the earring Harrison Ford wears.
If I'm doing a play, 30 to 40 percent of the people that come to the stage door have pictures of 'Alien' for me to autograph. And usually, the photos are pretty gory ones.
You know, every time a summer movie comes out, people think they're gonna get rich off of the merchandise.
I have a trophy case that contains all the action figures ever made of me. It also has items I've stolen from my movies, like three guns and holsters from 'Serenity'.
One of my biggest disappointments is watching the trailer for the second 'Lord of the Rings' film and having Gandalf in it. Why? You know, he died in the first one, why give it away in the trailer just to try and sell a thousand more seats? It's daft.
I remember how much fun it was to pick out my lunchbox. My all-time favorite lunch box was from the movie 'Annie.' Also, I loved picking out school supplies! Trapper Keepers were my favorite.
A nice thing about being at Disney is that these movies can develop into a presence in theme parks and become something real, or maybe get a sequel or tell other stories.
Hollywood is a roulette wheel. Each project dictates what's going to happen for you next, and it doesn't really matter that your project is critically acclaimed or won awards or has fans worldwide. It's a matter of how many movie tickets and DVDs and on-demand movies that you sell.
I believe if you go to a movie theatre, and you see something you think is incredible, if you walk out of the theatre and there was a bin in the lobby of DVDs of the film you just watched, you would buy four of them - one for you and three for your friends.
If it's a huge tentpole movie, for instance with a movie like 'Tintin,' a year and a half, almost two years in advance, we were developing a videogame campaign and massive consumer products campaign.
