Exploitation films were famous for taking an issue an exploiting it because they could move much faster than a studio could. If there was any hot topic, they would run out and make a quick movie and make a buck on it, by changing it around and using it, in some way, to give some relevance.
People talk about immigration, but they won't talk about the corruption that actually exists between Mexico and the U.S.
You create superheroes to take care of problems that can't really be solved another way.
I was the one in charge of the kids growing up.
I always wanted to be a stay-at-home dad making art, making movies.
Usually, I'm just pleasing myself and I have very similar tastes I think to an audience, what that core audience really likes.
If I'm excited about it, I'm pretty sure an audience is going to enjoy it. If I'm bored with an idea, you can bet they're going to be asleep. So I try to only do things that I'm fairly excited about.
Yeah, I was always a big fan of noir.
I was from such a large family that when I first met my wife, I told her: 'You can go work outside of the house and I'll stay home and continue making my cartoon strips. Maybe I'll make some commercials nearby, you know I'll do anything locally, but I would love to just stay at home and raise the kids like I did when I was growing up.'
It's such a drag to make a movie.
When you go off in the world and make your life, and you come back to your home town, and you find your old high-school friends driving in the same circles, doing the same things, that's what Hollywood's like. It's a little block, little town. It doesn't really grow or change.
Everyone applauds each other's success in Hollywood because they know how tough it is, but it really comes down fundamentally to the process.
I kind of like working fast.
If you create a good story that has a lot of story value... I think audiences like that. It's why they stick with the same TV show over and over.
I usually have a couple of projects going on that are different. A 'Sin City' while I'm doing a 'Spy Kids' at the same time. I need different things going on.
For me, Mexploitation seemed like something that should have existed, but didn't.
If you do a film with a studio, agents step in, they start saying, 'My actor has to get this amount of money', and it becomes about deals.
I want to push technology boundaries to be more efficient.
I like to keep my budgets at a certain price when I work for someone else, and even more so now that I'm working for myself, and use new technologies to deliver films that look like they have high production levels.
It's rare for the studios to find a filmmaker who wants to make a family film. To find someone that has an idea, embraces it, has kids and wants to make something exciting - well, they don't see that too often.
