When I was getting started, I was so busy just fighting my way through, and I was under contract at Warner Brothers. I did 40 hours of color television with the late Robert Taylor as a young cop.
Most of the contract people at MGM stayed and stayed and stayed. Why? Because the studio looked after them. Warner Brothers wouldn't - they were always spanking somebody or selling them down the river.
The parallel we like to make.... is the idea of becoming the next Warner Brothers, which is a company that creates the content, but they also produce the content. They also distribute; they also market. So we say that because Fine Bros. and Warner Brothers is fun to say.
I think more influential than Emily Dickinson or Coleridge or Wordsworth on my imagination were Warner Brothers, Merrie Melodies, and Loony Tunes cartoons.
I remember telling the head of Warner Brothers that if they'd just make a video for 'Ol' Red'... and if it didn't work, they could drop me from the label.
Independent films in this country are in the same position. Miramax and Fine Line are not independent - they're with Disney! Come on. Or they're with Warner Brothers. They're all with somebody.
I've had the luxury of working on a lot of our great brands here at Warner Brothers, including a lot of the DC ones. I've also worked on a lot of great brands that were not DC.
Finding original source material is not easy, but when something special like 'Edge of Tomorrow' comes along, everybody recognized it. I wasn't swimming against the stream. Warner Brothers immediately supported it, Tom Cruise signed on instantly; Emily Blunt, who was our first choice, signed on immediately.
My career at Warner Brothers consisted of one musical short subject. I was running around in a bear skin. Very chic.
The Canary Islands offer special incentives to companies looking at potential filming locations, so it was only logical for me to help the local government make connections with major U.S. film studios like Universal, Fox, Sony, Disney, Paramount, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, CBS, Viacom, Comcast, HBO, Netflix, Warner Brothers etc.
