Paul Fischer > Quotes

“Fundamentally, George’s and Steven’s films were about making the audience feel comfort, while filmmakers like Francis, Marty, and De Palma pursued discomfort, for themselves and their viewers. Comfort sold tickets more reliably than unease. Familiarity, in the form of sequels and remakes, was a promise of comfort. Those were the films prioritized by Hollywood executives desperate to prove their worth and justify their pay packages to the conglomerates that had swallowed up the studios, whose shareholders understood success only as translated into profit margins and scrutinized box-office numbers as if they were stock prices.”
― Paul Fischer, The Last Kings of Hollywood: Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg―and the Battle for the Soul of American Cinema

“...every great idea starts as a movement, becomes a business, and winds up as a racket.”
― Paul Fischer, The Last Kings of Hollywood: Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg―and the Battle for the Soul of American Cinema