My attitude is one movie at a time. I don't want to get ahead of myself.
I think 'Badlands' is my favorite movie because it reminded me of where I was from.
The movie I made with my friends in my hometown based on a dream becomes a stepping stone to 'Spider-Man.' I wish I could say this was an amazing, calculated path but... It's so weird.
I had a recurring stress dream since I was a kid 10 years old. My friend Travis is driving, and I'm afraid we're going to get in trouble. We keep passing people I recognize, and no one is doing anything. Travis keeps driving faster. I've had that dream a long time.
'Clown' started as a fake trailer for a nonexistent movie.
'Welcome to the Dollhouse' is great. Even though it's about a girl in middle school, to me, that feels like the most honest reflection of what being a kid around that age feels like.
I didn't even think anyone would want to make 'Cop Car,' and then I didn't think anyone would want to distribute 'Cop Car,' and then I didn't think anyone would want to see 'Cop Car.'
A great thing about kids is they're just themselves and can't help it a lot of the times.
It's really cool to do, like, a 'Harry Potter' evolution because you can really take your time with the character development: really, like, don't rush past the implications of great power and great responsibility.
Big movie or small movie, you make this thing, and then you show it to people, and you just hope they like it. You hope it works.
That's why people love Spider-Man: he's the most grounded, relatable of superheroes.
Film is a temporal medium as much as it is a visual medium: you're playing with time, and you don't have that ability where someone can pause at home. That's such a fundamental part of what makes filmmaking exciting to me. I don't really have as much interest in any other medium. I just like the control.
I love the movies. Everyone always says the same thing about the shared cultural experience, seeing things on the big screen, the church of the cinema... But on top of all that, as a filmmaker, I love having people be trapped in a movie theater, forcing them to watch what I made.
It's all about making an experience. You go to the movies to see something you've never seen before. You want to get different people out there with different voices. So you see awesome huge spectacle or just a small unbelievable story you've never seen before.
Something I learned early on in my career is there's no use trying to fool anybody about what you want to do on a project where there are other people involved, rather than your own thing.
When you're writing something to direct, you just write exactly what you're going to do. You don't have to write it in a way for other people to understand or interpret.
I liked writing with my friends and making our own little stories. Making a movie like 'Spider-Man' never even crossed my mind.
Talking to someone you have a crush on is as scary as fighting a super-villain.
When you make a movie for a really low budget, it makes you really strict. You have to plan things down to the tiniest detail.
I think every kid is a 'Spider-Man' fan at some point.
