Movie Business Quotes

In this day and age, you need a lot of patience if you are in the movie business. ~ Brett Ratner

I'm in the movie business; it's meant to be very cutthroat. But you won't find anybody that ever says I cheated them or manipulated them. ~ Jack Nicholson

I'm not in the movie business anymore, and hardly any 70 year olds are. I always ask the producers: 'Are there no 70-year old vampires?' Apparently there are not - or even zombies for that matter. I guess they all get eaten. ~ Brian Dennehy

The Hollywood image of the movie business is all about ambition and high achievers like James Cameron. But the British film industry is much more about men who wear cravats and work with model trains and hope another series of 'Thomas the Tank Engine' will be commissioned. ~ Peter Capaldi

I feel I belong in the movie business and I belong in the security business. It's a natural for me. ~ Sam J. Jones

When television came in, everybody thought that was the end of the movie business, which was not and is not. ~ Henry Blodget

Lady Sylvia McCordle: Mr Weissman
Tell us about the film you're going to make.
Morris Weissman: Oh, sure. It's called "Charlie Chan In London". It's a detective story.
Mabel Nesbitt: Set in London?
Morris Weissman: Well, not really. Most of it takes place at a shooting party in a country house. Sort of like this one, actually. Murder in the middle of the night, a lot of guests for the weekend, everyone's a suspect. You know, that sort of thing.
Constance: How horrid. And who turns out to have done it?
Morris Weissman: Oh, I couldn't tell you that. It would spoil it for you.
Constance: Oh, but none of us will see it. ~ Julian Fellowes

In the movie business, the ones we call Lucky are usually those idiots who are just too damn stubborn to take no for an answer. Come to think of it, the movie business is kind of like life. ~ Lois Greiman

The movie business is very much like that: people in authority making purely emotional decisions instead of interesting rational ones. ~ Bill Forsyth

Any good business person applies financial discipline to everything they do. The movie business is and should be no different; I don't believe you have to sacrifice creativity to have business success. To the contrary, great art requires discipline. ~ Paula Wagner

I think the publishing industry is dismayingly like the movie business. It grows more corporate by the day. ~ Matthew Specktor

My career in the movie business began in Hong Kong, my heart has always been tied to Asia, and it is immensely gratifying to see international recognition for Asian cinema as a whole. ~ Michelle Yeoh

I think I've always been kept grounded. I've never been too involved with the movie business apart from just doing the film. I've never moved out to LA like a lot of people or been too drawn in by that. ~ Freddie Highmore

Rome is magic, it's like being in Hollywood. But the difference between Hollywood and Rome is that here you don't have just the movie business. The movie business is so little, so you also have the choice to hang out with people who do different kinds of business. ~ Maria Grazia Cucinotta

The business that people do in LA on the social level is amazing. You go to a restaurant, bump into this guy or that guy. The next day you get a call, and they want you in their movie. ~ Kevin Bacon

Everyone is so preoccupied by youth. People talk about how the movie business is a microcosm of the bigger picture, or life imitating art, but the business is guilty for getting women out of the way. ~ Sam Elliott

The more I see of the movie business, the less I understand about it. I have no idea what goes on with that stuff. ~ Mike Mignola

Because of who I am, when I sit at a poker table, I meet people who engage me in conversation, not only about poker, but also about the movie business and about the world of celebrities. ~ James Woods

I'm no longer dependent on the movie business to make a living. So if I want to make movies as other old guys would play golf, I can. ~ Francis Ford Coppola

Its not really about the movie business, it's about staying in the picture. ~ Robert Evans

There just is exponentially more money in the movie business than in the music business. As a result there are more people involved in the creative process. ~ Adam Duritz

The movie business is very twisted, out of site, out of mind, you know. ~ Tony Curtis

If there's anything disgusting about the movie business, it's the whoredom of my peers. ~ Sean Penn

First of all, just knowing people who grew up in the movie business at that time, no one had Mexican maids. ~ Bill Condon

I think it started to feel like home when I stopped maintaining any pretense that I was ever going to be in the movie business. I went there like many writers - I had a screenplay deal and I would go to these meetings and it was the typical thing. And I hated it. I was not interested in writing screenplays, actually. But I kept feeling like that was what I was supposed to do. It was just this horrible cognitive dissonance. ~ Meghan Daum

One big lesson I learned from movie [making] was I don't do creative projects that I headline unless I have all the control. I can't deal with having to live with other people's screw ups, and that's just sort of the way the movie business works. The people with the money are in charge. Until I'm in charge, I don't want to play that game. ~ Tucker Max

I always wanted to live in L.A. The other thing that always inspired me was movies; that's why I'm here. I always wanted to be a part of the movie business and make movies. That's why I went to AFI grad school for filmmaking. ~ Jeff Vespa

Television is like the movie business. It's not the least-objectionable program - it's the best program that gets positioned. Same in the movie business. It's not just everything automatically gets done by the "in" crowd. ~ Henry Blodget

In terms of the movie business, being in a 'Lord of the Rings' has given me more interesting options as work. ~ Viggo Mortensen

Recognizing that the movie business was the entertainment business that wasn't moving fast enough to fill my creative and financial coffers was an impetus to grow, and that has taken me and so many of my colleagues into a larger world. ~ Lynda Obst

There's a real cowardice in the movie business. If you don't meet the right crazy people, you can't do it. ~ Leos Carax

Rob [Reiner] is a teddy bear. He's hell delicious. He's a really good director. He's a great soul. In the movie business, I would call him a movie mom. The only person I hold in equal esteem is Clint Eastwood. Now I have worked with a lot of terrific directors, and I don't mean to be putting any of them below their own station, but these two, I relish working with them. ~ Morgan Freeman

With all these tentpoles, franchises, reboots and sequels, is there still room for movies in the movie business? ~ Lynda Obst

Television is a great job for a writer in the way that movies used to be, way before my time. Back when writers in Hollywood were on staff or under contract at any given studio and you'd write movie scripts and then the movies would get made within a few weeks, such that you could be a working writer in the movie business back in the '30s and '40s and '50s and have a hand in writing five or six movies a year that actually got produced. The only thing remotely like that in the 21st century here in Hollywood is working in the TV business. ~ Vince Gilligan

The movie business is very difficult but the music business is just impossible. So I'll play in bands and record and play songs with other people, but for me it's a form of expression that all I need is me. I don't need cameras or agents, I can just have a piano and sing and feel totally verified. ~ Jeremy Renner

It's very eclectic, the way one chooses subjects in the movie business, especially in the commercial movie business. You need to develop material yourself or material is presented to you as an assignment to direct. ~ John Frankenheimer

I left Mexico for artistic survival. If I had stayed, I would have been forced by the government, who control the movie business, to direct TV shows or commercials or infomercials for the government. ~ Alfonso Cuaron

The movie business has always been like the wild-catting oil business. Everyone wants a gusher. ~ Michael Eisner

Morris Weissman [on the phone, discussing casting for his movie]: What about Claudette Colbert? She's British, isn't she? She sounds British. Is she, like, affected or is she British? ~ Julian Fellowes

Feminists is something people hate above all. Nothing worse than being a woman in this [movie] business. I really believe that. ~ Julie Delpy

Why would everyone - in both the movie business and the audience - want to avoid the label "marriage"? Marriage was presumably everybody's business. People were either born into one, born outside of one, living in one, living outside of one, trying to woo someone into one, divorced from one, trying to get divorced from one, reading about one, dreaming about one, or just observing one from afar. For most people, it would be the central event - the biggest decision - of their lives. Marriage was the poor man's trip to Paris and the shopgirl's final goal. At the very least, it was a common touchstone. Unlike a fantasy film or a sci-fi adventure, a marriage story didn't have to be explained or defined. Unlike a western or a gangster plot, it didn't have to find a connection to bring a jolt of emotional recognition to an audience. Marriage was out there, free to be used and presented to people who knew what the deal was. ~ Jeanine Basinger

If you make something good, eventually the audience will be there, eventually there will be something on the Internet that is a cultural phenomenon that's not available anywhere else, that's not available on television broadcasts, that's not on cable, it's only on some Web site. And the world will find it. And when that happens, it will be what the 'kiss' was to the theatrical movie business, 5,000 years ago or whenever it was. ~ Michael Eisner

People are goofy about the movie business, so you end up counting on friends you knew before you were successful. It is harder to make new friends because you are a little more cautious. ~ Michael Douglas

The music business is rougher than the movie business. In film you get noticed in a small role, even in a movie that bombs. But in records you better have that hit or else it's 'See you later.' ~ Amy Madigan

Certainly in the movie business there are bullies all over - bullies in the distribution business, exhibition business, production. Fine-tuning adult bullying is different. When a bully is an adult, it's a whole different set of colors. ~ Martin Kove

A lot of people in the movie business don't have a point of reference for me; nobody really knows who I am. ~ Andre Holland

The only times you'll see me in terms of the movie business is when I have to go to the premieres of my own movies. I don't go to see ones that aren't mine because I don't even like going to mine. ~ Billy Bob Thornton

In so many years in the movie business, you have a lot of doors slammed in your face, and a lot of people say mean things. Every time, I'm constantly surprised at how the span of time gets quicker that I get okay with it, and I'm over it. That's been an interesting thing to learn. ~ Jennifer Love Hewitt

I've never written a movie, I'm not in the movie business. I go out to L.A. and I'm like everyone else wandering around in a daze hoping I see movie stars. I write the novels that the movies are based on, and that feels like enough of a job for me. ~ Justin Cronin

I try not to repeat myself too often, but it's a gamble. 'Fred Claus' had three Oscar winners in it. No business - it was a bad movie. ~ Elizabeth Banks

There is, of course, a world of difference between cricket and the movie business ... I suppose doing a love scene with Racquel Welch roughly corresponds to scoring a century be fore lunch. ~ Oliver Reed

Sometimes you think the movie is good and BOOM! Sometimes you think it's no good. BAAM! The movie business is a big gamble. You never know. ~ Jackie Chan

Life in the movie business is like the beginning of a new love affair: it's full of surprises, and you're constantly getting fucked. ~ David Mamet

My dad was born in Chicago in 1908 ... his parents came from Russia. They settled in Chicago, where they lived in a little tiny grocery store with eight or nine children - in the backroom all together - and my grandmother got the idea to go into the movie business. ~ Bob Balaban

Netflix, Amazon, iTunes - whatever platforms emerge - we are looking at as having the same potential that home video had for the movie business. Which means there are entirely new opportunities to monetize our capital investment in content and do so in ways that work for distributors, for consumers and for creators. ~ Bob Iger

You don't have to reinvent the wheel ... just steal the hubcaps. ~ Michael P. Naughton

The core of the movie business remains intact and it's not descending in scope. Studios want movies that are bigger than ever. ~ Joel Silver

Hollywood Rule:

RULE #1: You only need a license to do three things in the film business: blow up a building, wash someone's hair, or drive a truck. You need no license, certification, documentation, or, for that matter, any filmmaking experience to be a writer, producer, director, actor, or even a studio executive. All you need is money. ~ David Marder

The art world has always been an unrelenting taste machine, but now flavors of the month have morphed into flavors of the minute. Again, all a reflection of a wider cultural condition. I mean, the art world is slow compared with the music and movie businesses. ~ Barbara Kruger

You know, I never expected to enter the movie business. ~ Christopher Atkins

I don't think anybody came into the movie business to be unoriginal and plagiarising and not having an original idea in their brain. ~ Jeremy Thomas

There are a lot of kids out there copying and distributing movies - not because they care about seeing the movies or sharing them with their friends, but because they want to stick it to the movie business. ~ John Perry Barlow

I'll walk through fire to do what I do because the movie business, when it's right, is the coolest art form ever invented. ~ Ron Perlman

Hollywood is the backdrop of my family, and I know that the movie business is incredibly cruel as you get older. ~ Jamie Lee Curtis

Creating art (music, books, films, etc.) can be beautiful and liberating, but trying to sell art, well, that is the movie business. There are few winners, and lots and lots of losers. ~ Ronnie Apteker

The left-leaning thinking that dominates the movie business follows a common liberal instinct to deny the spiritual dimension to every problem, thereby profoundly compounding the difficulties. ~ Michael Medved

The movie business has been in enormous flux. It's always changing, and you've got to scramble. The Internet came along and devoured the DVD backend of the movie business. Suddenly you're watching dollars turn into nickels, and that's interesting to me. ~ Stephen Gaghan

I think having power ingrains people with a conservatism. There's a tendency to hedge one's bets. (Which explains a lot, actually, about why the movie business is the way it is, and why the publishing industry is too.) ~ Matthew Specktor

As somebody who makes his living in the movie business and wants to contribute to it, I think that the best chance I have of doing that is just consistently working with great directors. ~ Matt Damon

A nonfiction author has to bring a platform with him - radio, a TV show or some kind of recognizable vehicle to help launch them. And the agent is really necessary to represent all of the business interests of the author. ~ Larry Kirshbaum

Art is fast, but with art you're tied down. That's too negative. What I mean is, you have a business and a place that you go every day. I guess some artists do move around. ~ Cory Arcangel

If you don't like something don't protest from a far. Work within it to change it. Otherwise, you'll just be one voice of many rather than a trusted voice of influence. ~ Isabella Poretsis

When I go see an R-rated horror movie, I want lots of violence. ~ Eli Roth

No matter what it is, if you get 10 people in the business talking about something, you get 10 different opinions, but you know, they're amazingly well informed. ~ James Woods

There is no mystery about successful business ... Exclusive attention to the person who is speaking to you. ~ Charles William Eliot

The world will never be the same once you've seen it through the eyes of Forrest Gump. ~ Forrest Gump (movie) Tagline

Whatever you do in your business comes out of a state of inner alignment with life and the source of life itself, so peace flows into whatever you do. ~ Eckhart Tolle

I saw a mummy in a movie once, and I've got to say I love George Harrison's style. ~ Jarod Kintz

If you don't have enough money you need to change your mind about money. It is not your actions. It is not saving. It is not spending. It is not anything else other than how you think about money. ~ Meir Ezra

Every Day is Canada Day for new Canadians ~ Maureen Haddock

It's always been because of you," said Andrea gently. "There was never anyone else. We like Maddie. He likes her. But that's the problem. Throughout it all, we could just tell that you were always the one. Now, whatever happened between you guys to make it go bad isn't any of our business. We're just not that surprised to see this new development. ~ Richelle Mead

Sir Gerald Moore: I was at dinner last evening, and halfway through the pudding, this four-year-old child came alone, dragging a little toy cart. And on the cart was a fresh turd. Her own, I suppose. The parents just shook their heads and smiled. I've made a big investment in you, Peter. Time and money, and it's not working. Now, I could just shake my head and smile. But in my house, when a turd appears, we throw it out. We dispose of it. We flush it away. We don't put it on the table and call it caviar. ~ Tom Wolfe

I was born in Poland I came to Sweden when I was eight and always wanted to act and suddenly ended up in a Bond movie which was for me at that time absolutely enormous. ~ Izabella Scorupco

My brother started in the music business, and I was an actor - we were both in the entertainment industry, but doing separate things. Then he went over to New Line and started their soundtrack department, that's how he got his foot in the door. ~ Noah Emmerich

The essence of good business is knowing when to step on a train and when to step off. ~ Richard Rainwater

When a family is unified, it doesn't matter what business they're in. They can successfully transition from one generation to the next. ~ Andrew Keyt

I don't want to just sell out shows to young girls who like my movie franchise. I want to sell tickets because people respect me. ~ Ansel Elgort

Because of Stephen King, horror movies don't scare me. There is nothing a horror movie director can do to me that Stephen King hasn't done already. ~ E.H. Kern

Sometimes I feel as if we are all trapped in a movie. We know our lines, where to walk, how to act, only there is no camera. Yet, we can't break out of the movie. And it's a bad one. ~ Charles Bukowski

Creation is built upon the promise of hope, that things will get better, that tomorrow will be better than the day before.

But it's not true. Cities collapse. Populations expand. Environments decay. People get ruder. You can't go to a movie without getting in a fight with the guy in the third row who won't shut up.

Filthy streets. Drive-by shootings. Irradiated corn. Permissible amounts of rat-droppings per hot dog. Bomb blasts, and body counts. Terror in the streets, on camera, in your living room. Aids and Ebola and Hepatitis B and you can't touch anyone because you're afraid you'll catch something besides love and nothing tastes as good anymore and Christopher Reeve is [dead] and love is statistically false.

Pocket nukes and subway anthrax. You grow up frustrated, you live confused, you age frightened, you die alone. Safe terrain moves from your city to your block to your yard to your home to your living room to the bedroom and all you want is to be allowed to live without somebody breaking in to steal your tv and shove an ice-pick in your ear.

That sound like a better world to you? That sound to you like a promise kept? ~ J. Michael Straczynski

Cheyenne Autumn was received not too successfully. I still think it was a very good movie. It was kinda Ford's apology for the way he had treated Indians in his past pictures. ~ Richard Widmark

Police internal affairs are in the business of protecting corrupt and incompetent police officers from prosecution due to the extensive range of laws that they have blatantly broken. ~ Steven Magee

We have been spending beyond our means, we are going to focus on the projects that we committed to in the election but importantly if there is additional projects or new things that come up they have to have a business case, they have to work and they can't impose financial stress on families and private individuals and businesses. ~ Campbell Newman

I know that I personally have felt quite happy because I've done what I wanted to do. I pursued my interests and have thus managed to combine my business with lots of fun. I guess my only advice is to do what you enjoy, and try to do your best with it. ~ Jim Henson

When he would steal a kiss from her, it always took her breath away. No one kissed like Rick. No other man was able to make her lose all conception of time when he kissed her.

That was not all. Rick was fun to work with and made her laugh. As a partner, he had talents that she desperately needed in her business. He was a cunning and crafty man, and his talents helped in solving many cases. ~ Linda Weaver Clarke

I always say everyone was lucky enough to be in a Cate Blanchett movie. ~ David Fincher

How you promote yourself in the marketplace determines your success in the business world today ~ Timi Nadela

I think that if you do an American movie it's important to earn some money, but in a stupid way, to be respected. ~ Audrey Tautou

I love fashion from the 1930s and '40s - shoulder pads, high waists, things with structure. That is classy for me. Andrea Riseborough from the Madonna movie 'W.E.' had an amazing wardrobe. ~ Eva Green

I do not regret one professional enemy I have made. Any actor who doesn't dare to make an enemy should get out of the business. ~ Bette Davis