The advantage of the Genesis is that it's a rock-solid camera, made by a company with an enormous history and a huge support base. Plus, it's very good in low light using all the Panavision lenses. The downside is that you're recording on tape.
In the '80s, all the movies became predictable.
It's fun to watch a show that you can watch with any member of your family, and you're going to laugh, and you're going to be moved, and you're going to have fun, rather than this dark, brooding, cold, 'purely procedural show.'
That transcends everything - skipping the transfer of dailies is a game-changer.
In the '70s, you didn't know who was going to survive in a disaster film.
There's a lot of superhero stuff out there and a lot of cop stuff out there. What we have very little of anymore is adventure.
The days of family entertainment seem to have left us.
Spielberg is our hero. For him to make a nod to 'Godzilla' just before we make our movie is like getting the king to acknowledge you at dinner.
There are an enormous amount of techniques I wanted to beta test in television. You can't take those risks on a $100 million movie.
In movies, we've run out of ideas for bad guys. We end up with politically incorrect villains, like Arab terrorists or Latin drug dealers or corrupt politicians. Well, aliens are the best film villains since the Nazis. You don't have to worry about offending anyone.
The real trick to these movies and making the big action sequences work - and I've forgotten this sometimes and screwed it up - the characters really have to be humanized. Because you can have the greatest special effects in the world, but if you don't care about the people in those effects, there's no impact.
We've always had a simple philosophy in casting. We don't care if somebody's a big star or a little star. We just want the best possible actor for the part.
I like to make popcorn movies. It's my passion. I love the genre.
Following a pre-cellphone world of children on an adventure is incredibly appealing for me. These are the kinds of movies I fell in love with and made me want to be a filmmaker in the first place.
I would love it if the whole 'Godzilla' franchise was revitalized for a new generation.
Filmmaking is a real democracy - it's up to the audience to vote with their tickets.
There was no studio involved when we made 'Stargate.' It was financed through Le Studio Canal+ in France and, after the film was finished, it was sold to MGM. When the film was a success, MGM decided to do a television series based on the movie.
I hope to make the most expensive movie in history at some point!
When I tried to get 'Stargate' made, I took it to every studio in Hollywood and every studio said, 'Sci-fi is dead. It's a dead genre. No one wants to see science fiction anymore.' And I had to go and raise the money independently to make that movie.
I can tell you as a fact that if you'd asked anyone in Hollywood one year before 'Pirates of the Caribbean' had come out, they'd have told you the pirate movie was a dead genre. And it's not that it's a dead genre. If you make a bad pirate movie, no one will want to see it. If you make a good one, everyone will want to see it.
