Quotes About Success

I've been blessed in my career to be able to do studio and independent films.

You don't just go to the studio and say, 'I'm going to write a hit.' It becomes a hit when people like your compositions.

While I was making my solo films, RKO was busily trying to get me and Fred Astaire back together. The studio wanted to capitalize on the success of 'Flying Down to Rio' and realized that the pairing of Rogers and Astaire had moneymaking potential.

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.

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.

Relatives cannot help you in the studios. You stand or fall by your own efforts.

Not many people get that chance to have multiple studios wanting you to make a movie with them.

The reason there's a 'Hellboy 2' is not because the studios were passionate about the first one; it's because the numbers made sense.

Music was definitely a way out. Instead of playing basketball, I was going to recording studios.

I wouldn't wish overnight success on anyone. You have no real friends. Everyone works endless hours at different studios, so far apart. Even on your own lot, relationships were formal and often competitive.

Here's the thing with the business, is that when people like your work, and you make them money, you're set. When the critics like you, and you make the studios money, doors opened.

You have to work to be relevant. If you don't, then people will forget, and the studios won't want you because they won't remember the last thing you did that made money.

From meeting Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones, teaming up, rehearsing, playing selected gigs outside of Britain, coming back into Olympic Studios to record the first album, and then going to America, which we crack open like a nut with the debut record - all that happened, literally, within months.

And for me the only way to live life is to grab the bull by the horns and call up recording studios and set dates to go in recording studios. To try and accomplish something.

I like the fact that major studios have been attempting horror films recently.

The studios knew how to build a star, and they knew what to do with you. They also taught you everything.

The major studios don't differ very much from one another as they all operate under essentially the same principles and pressure.

When studios start telling me why a particular film project won't work, I remember 'Rocky.' I remember that the biggest success Bob Chartoff and I have had was a film nobody wanted to make.

I like working. I wish I could say I made a deliberate choice to comedy, but it's just what came my way. It's what the studios wanted to make. Some of my friends were doing it, like Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, and they offered me 'Talladega Nights.' It's just nice work if you can get it. It's a joyful day at work, making your friends laugh.

If you look at successful studios, they're the ones with stabilized management.

I often thought that if I had been working with Mark James at American Studios, I would have had a pop hit before I ever moved out of Memphis. But that didn't happen.

If you're a young actor, unless you're on a very short list at the studios, we have to be very creative about moving your career along. Otherwise, all we can do is hope to get lucky and find that perfect role that pops you into stardom.

Indie movies got co-opted by the studio system. The studios insisted that only stars could make movies successful.

If you have a career like mine, which is so identified with Hollywood, with big studios and stars, you wonder if maybe you shouldn't go off and do what the world thinks of as more personal films with lesser-known people. But I think I've fooled everybody. I've made personal films all along. I just made them in another form.