Movie Producer Quotes & Sayings

I never aspired to be a television producer and a movie director, and I'm shocked that this idea is still going on. — Jeff Tremaine

I like writing dialog but don't think I'd be much good at a screenplay. I once had to write a treatment for a novel of mine - a condition of its being optioned by a movie producer - and I turned out something pretty lackluster. So my inclination would be to stay out of the way of an experienced screenwriter. — Thomas Mallon

If a movie doesn't even have financing yet, they'll do a table read for it at a casting director's office with actors, for the producer and the writer, just to hear if the movie is working. — Bill Hader

My entire career is contemporary based, not by choice, but just by character. So, all the movies I've done, except for one in 40 years, are contemporary. But I never did an effects movie. So, I'm also a producer and I was really curious about how this whole thing went together. — Michael Douglas

When you're writing a movie or a play and writing isn't going well, which is for me the normal condition - it's an exceptional day when suddenly I've got something and it's going well - you can call the studio or the producer or whoever is waiting for it and say, I know I said I was going to have it in by the end of the summer. — Aaron Sorkin

I had a 90-minute one-man show. I performed it and my life just exploded. Everything - my life just changed. Every writer, director, producer, studio head, movie star - they all wanted it. It was the hottest property since Rocky. — Chazz Palminteri

Wherever I make a movie, no matter what size it is, it's always about a straightforward communication with the producer. — Ryuhei Kitamura

He [Bogie] had tremendous character and a great sense of honor and would not tolerate lies, even if they asked him what he thought of a movie. We were once at a screening at somebody's house, I forget whose, and they ran a movie that he was in, that he never thought much of. Afterward, the producer asked what he thought of it, and Bogie said "I think it's a crock." And this producer was horrified! He was about to release the movie, and he said to Bogie "Why would you say that?!" Bogie shrugged and said "Then don't ask me." He never played the schmoozing game. He was not into that at all. — Lauren Bacall

Most people want to become movie stars and I just want to be in the business. I already was a star. If I get the part of a lifetime and it blows up, then that's wonderful. But if the acting doesn't work, fine. I'll just be a producer. And if the producing doesn't work, fine. I've got a lot of other stuff. — Carl Lewis

'My Fair Godmother's movie rights sold to the producer who did 'Freaky Friday,' 'Princess Diaries,' and one of my favorite movies - 'Sky High.' — Janette Rallison

The great thing about being a producer on a project is that you get to see the ins and outs of every piece of the puzzle. There are so many elements involved in every aspect of a film's development that I don't think the average person is aware of, which is, I guess, why the whole process is referred to as movie magic. — Roberto Aguire

With literary fiction, generally a film maker falls in love with a book. In commercial fiction, it's a producer or studio falling in love with a book they can make into a movie with worldwide appeal. — Robert Gottlieb

I don't know for a fact, but I feel fairly certain that the first person who described a movie as 'character driven' had to have been a producer or studio executive. — Steve Erickson

I think the toughest thing is to describe what a producer does because they basically do everything. They follow a project from the start through the rest of its life and, along the way, are a part of every single aspect of its growth. It's tremendously enriching, though, because you get to know and live with the movie in its entirety. — Roberto Aguire

Food was always a big part of my life. My grandfather was one of 14 kids, and his parents had a pasta factory, so as a kid, he and his siblings would sell pasta door to door. After he became a movie producer, he opened up De Laurentiis Food Stores - one in Los Angeles and one in New York. — Giada De Laurentiis

My grandfather was a movie producer, and so I grew up on movie sets. — Cassandra Clare

There have been times when I've been asked to do things and I've thought, 'This is great! This is a great script. But, I do not believe myself in this role.' I pretend I'm the producer and I think, 'If I was making this movie, would I cast myself in this part,' and if that doesn't feel right to me, then I don't even go audition for it. — Billy Campbell

I believe how you measure a good movie is how many times you can see it. With comedies, I like to be a producer, because comedies can get corny and go off track real fast. I'm always the 'less is more' guy when it comes to a scene. So I'ma be the one who will keep it grounded. — Ice Cube

There's an inherent idea that if a Black executive producer and a Black director are going to do a movie based on a Black writer's book that everybody is going to be Black. — Gabrielle Union

Well, Kevin Downes is the producer of Mom's Night Out. He was a fellow actor with me in the movie Courageous. He plays my police partner and we have been friends for several years. He came and helped me on Courageous and said "Would you come help me on Mom's Night Out?" — Alex Kendrick

One thing I've learned as an actor as well as a producer is to trust my own instinct. When I first started acting I would sometimes have ideas about certain things, whether it's a scene, or a character or certain dialogue, that wouldn't be followed. I was never in a position to have the power to press the matter. Sometimes it wasn't even about my character. But I'd watch the movie afterwards and think I was right. — Gerard Butler

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

I will never become a director or a movie producer. I was always looking at picture directing because I didn't know what to do! You can't be a movie director without real preparation. — Liam Neeson

I'm working on a movie called 'Virgin Mary' with Abigail Breslin. I'm also in 'Ice Age 4: Continental Drift.' And I have a television movie coming on Nickelodeon that I worked on with Nick Cannon. I acted in it, but I am more excited about being a producer! — Keke Palmer

The fact is Jerry Weintraub, the handsome, bearish movie producer, the man with the long career, who worked with Arthur Godfrey and Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra and George Clooney, is a great storyteller - he's this as much as he's anything else. He takes time telling stories, too. — Rich Cohen

I made a handshake agreement with my best friend in college, Michael Shamberg, who is now a movie producer. We used to write shows together, and we said, "Let's only do what's fun. Let's never take a job where we have to dress up in a suit." — Harold Ramis

Where have you been?"
I stepped into my apartment and met Uncle Bob's glare with one of my own. "Out trying to pass myself off as a movie producer to get hot guys to sleep with me. Where have you been? — Darynda Jones

When you do a first movie, you're contractually supposed to do the second one and then you don't do it, you become an executive producer. That's why there are a ton of directors who have executive producer credits on other movies. — Louis Leterrier

One famous movie executive who shall remain nameless, exposed himself to me in his office. 'Mr X,' I said, 'I thought you were a producer not an exhibitor'. — Shirley Temple

I'm lucky. I don't have to produce the whole movie. What I've been doing is just coming up with ideas for movies. I write a concept, a treatment, an outline, and if I sell that to a studio, then someone else does the actual production and I go on to another project, although I keep the title executive producer. — Stan Lee

I had never intended to be on the show more than three years, regardless of how successful it was. I had other things I wanted to do. And I was offered a role in 'Red Sky at Morning', [1970]. I got that part because [producer] Hal Wallis had seen the HERE'S LUCY show with Ann-Margaret. It was a thrill for me, getting to do the drama and comedy. It was such a good role. So I missed several episodes of the show to shoot the movie. And I never came back but one. — Desi Arnaz Jr.

As important as it is to learn the techniques of cinematography, you also have to learn how to deal with the movie set, with show business. I came up with a cinematographer who is very talented, but she was never quite able to handle everything else you have to do - dealing with the producer and the crew and the time frame that you have to follow. — Maryse Alberti

It can really vary from movie to movie what the producer's role is and there are all kinds of producers. There are line producers who do a lot of the nuts and bolts work on the set. — Nina Jacobson

It's a lot harder to keep your cool than it is to lose it. That's on any work ethic. Even if you're a big producer on a movie set, or whatever, it's a lot harder to be a pro than be a baby on your crew. That's one work ethic to keep in mind, as one bad apple could give five people a bad day, when that one person could've stepped up their own efforts a little more and not bring anyone else down. — Hank Williams III

What does she do?"
"She's a producer." Of course, in Los Angeles this doesn't mean much more than "she's a member of the human race. — Julian Fellowes

When I work, I'm the actor. I'm going to do my job. I'm not going to direct the movie. If I wanted to direct it, I would direct it. I wanted J.J. Abrams to direct Mission: Impossible. I work with people that I respect. I expect them to do their jobs, and I will do mine. And I am there as a producer to help in any way, but no one makes a movie by themselves. It's a collaboration. — Tom Cruise

Even in our business, as is the world, we are in the age of specialisation. You see a lot of names of producers on a movie. If you have the idea, if you oversee the development, if you oversee the production, if you help package the movie, you sell the movie - you can be a producer. There's not a lot of us who do the whole gamut. — Charles Roven

I wanted to just be a filmmaker, and I thought I wanted to do all the aspects, and it seemed like as a producer was the best way to do it, because I could have ... You never have control on a movie, but you have as much control as you can. — John Cusack

At a certain point you have to make a decision in your life about where will you best serve, and I decided that I would best serve as a producer as opposed to a studio executive. There are many upsides to being the studio executive, but one of the downsides is that you get removed from the actual process of making the movie. — Adam Leipzig

Salman Khan did not help me get movie offers. What rubbish! Will any producer take a risk of millions of rupees at the instance of any person? Everyone knows that the film industry is highly competitive, and one gets a job on one's talent only and not on any recommendation. — Katrina Kaif

I've learned that if you can keep it calm and keep it fun and loose, then that allows for ideas from the crew. I don't care where an idea comes from, whether it's the crew or my producer or the actors or anybody. I just want it to be fun, and if that's the case, then I think you make a better movie. — Will Packer

Collider is a company that I formed with a movie producer, Alisa Tager, and we just wanted to create a place where writers could come and develop their ideas without a regard to limitations of form. — Marc Guggenheim

I'm a big fan of the 70's action films. Where there is a lot of character and a lot of great action, but the action is kind of cemented with a great back-story with characters. And I thought, this kind of reminded me of the movies that, early on when I was telling Dwayne (Johnson) and the guys, the producer ... my whole thing is if you look at a movie like The Driver by Walter Hill, it's a film where there's no names. They are just named, "the driver", "the cop". — George Tillman Jr.

Over the decade that movie producer Menahem Golan had retained the rights for Spider-Man, he'd managed to involve half a dozen different corporate entities. Golan had originally bought the Spider-Man rights for his Cannon Films; after leaving Cannon, he transferred them to 21st Century Films. Next, he raised money by preselling television rights to Viacom, and home video rights to Columbia Tri-Star; then he signed a $5 million deal with Carolco that guaranteed his role as producer. But after Carolco assigned the film to James Cameron, Cameron refused to give Golan the producer credit, and the lawsuits began. By the end of 1994, Carolco was suing Viacom and Tri-Star; Viacom and Tri-Star were countersuing Carolco, 21st Century, and Marvel; and MGM - which had swallowed Cannon - was suing Viacom, Tri-Star, 21st Century, and Marvel. — Sean Howe

These days, everyone is a writer, producer and movie star. You post something on the web, get enough hits, and suddenly you have TV show. — Dustin Diamond

I'm reading Joe Eszterhas biography; it's fabulous. Every time he made a movie, he fought with the director or the producer over the ending. — Chris Matthews

For me, to take a movie and travel the world and go and work with these cultures and an international cast and have this spy thriller that's not just about character but also action and suspense, they're very challenging films as a producer to make, creating stories, creating set pieces that serve this character [Ethan Hunt]. — Tom Cruise

TV showrunners have become known entities to people who watch television in the way that movie directors have been known to filmgoers for a long time. When I started out as a writer and producer in television, I never had the slightest expectation that fame would be part of the job. — Carlton Cuse

There's no great technical expertise in being a movie producer. — Mick Jagger

I think I'm an extremely conscientious producer and now equally as a director and it gives me the opportunity to look at the entire movie and really allow the movie to be the creative vision of the actors, the writer and myself, because I'm in charge of it from a producer and a director point of view. — Tony Krantz

Producers say things that they would like to see in the movie but they don't see the full picture. In the end if you ignore everything the producers say, of course, you get fired; but then if you listen to a producer on everything then it's like 'Hey - why don't you direct your own movie?' — Ryuhei Kitamura

Few people in one's life ever go quite away. They turn up again like characters in a Simon Raven novel. It is as if Fate is a movie producer who cannot afford to keep introducing new characters into the script but must get as many scenes out of every actor as possible. — Stephen Fry

I was working at a restaurant in L.A. when a producer came in. He said I should audition for this movie 'Cellular.' I did, and I got the part. It actually makes me sick to tell that story because it's obnoxious. — Mircea Monroe

I did a good bit of episodic television directing, but directing a movie is so much more complicated. And there's so much more responsibility because the medium is very much a director's medium. Television is much more of a producer's writer's medium so a lot of the time when you're directing a television show they have a color palette on set or a visual style and dynamic that's already been predetermined and you just kind of have to follow the rules. — Jason Bateman

One time in the late '50s, when Peter Finch, Laurence Harvey, and I were all offered the same movie role - the assumption being that we weren't friends - we marched up to producer Dino De Laurentiis's door and declared in unison, 'We don't think we're suitable for the part.' — Peter O'Toole

Japanese animation tends to need high budgets. If I have a high budget for a movie, I usually make animation, but if the project has a low budget, then I would ask the producer to consider live action. — Mamoru Oshii

One of the great things is, you're never a producer unless you're making a movie. — Rick McCallum

For John Woo, it is quite difficult to make a movie in Hollywood in his own style. Because Hollywood is based on a producer system, it is difficult for a director to express himself using his own style of filmmaking. — Alan Mak

I read the Phantom comics when I was in Australia shooting 'Dead Calm' and when one of the crew told me that there were plans for a movie, I went for it. That was in 1987 and I told (producer) Graham Burke I was going to be the Phantom. We had a laugh about that recently because you usually get what you deserve, not what you desire, and that is especially true in Hollywood! — Billy Zane

I discovered early in my movie work that a movie is never any better than the stupidest man connected with it. There are times when this distinction may be given to the writer or director. Most often it belongs to the producer. — Ben Hecht

I like the guys who wrote their own stuff and were able to perform it, like Seth Rogen. He popped off so young. When he did 'The 40-Year-Old Virgin,' and he was a co-producer on the movie, I was like, 'Oh my God: that's exactly what I want to do.' — Adam DeVine

Now a movie with 30 million returns would be something very incredible and the producer can only get 10 to 15 million. This is only 100 thousands US dollars. This is not enough! — Zhang Yimou

God is a Producer. He says, "Make the movie of your life beautiful! Here's the budget. — Bo Sanchez

I had never met Woody Allen before Melinda and Melinda. My agent knew the producer of the movie and he suggested that we would work well together and then we did. We had a great time on that film. — Vilmos Zsigmond

Writing a good movie brings a writer about as much fame as steering a bicycle. It gets him, however, more jobs. If his movie is bad it will attract only critical tut-tut for him. The producer, director and stars are the geniuses who get the hosannas when it's a hit. Theirs are also the heads that are mounted on spears when it's a flop. — Ben Hecht

Each of us gets to choose the movie of our life. Not only that, but we're the main character, the director, and the producer. So we get to choose how we want it to be.
From the Soul of Uncertainty — Mark Susnow

Occasionally I'll be a producer for hire on a larger budget movie, but with Blumhouse Pictures, we mainly focus on micro-budget, under-$5-million-dollar movies. That's what we're in business to do, and that's what we're in business to make. — Jason Blum

Directing a movie precludes me from being involved in any greater way. But, the job was never to do more, it was always to enable. Sometimes as a producer, you're creating and writing it, or sometimes you're writing and directing it, or other times you're there from the very beginning. — J.J. Abrams