Joseph Kosinski Quotations

Movies don't sit in the theaters for an entire summer like they did in 1982. Now you've got a two- or three-week shelf life so you need to have that awareness right off the bat. And in order to make a lot of people know about your movie, you need to be out there banging the drum and showing your stuff.

I always say, 'If you're planning on seeing our movie, don't look at any more of the materials.'

I went to school for engineering, I studied jazz. So I always had this kind of creative side and technical side, and I thought architecture might be the way to combine them, so I went to architecture school in New York.

Well I grew up in the Midwest, and I think the first film that blew my mind was 'Raiders of the Lost Ark.'

When you make a movie, you can only make the movie that you would want to see.

I realized that I loved using computers to create something, but being an architect just wasn't going to keep me interested. The idea of a life spent obsessing over bathroom details for an Upper East Side penthouse was pretty depressing.

The commercial music video industry is very hard to break into, and until you break in, that first job is the hardest thing in the world to get.

Tom [Cruise] is a great producer himself. He's got great sense of story. It's always great to have the perspective of the person who's playing the character in your film.

Well the only reason to go back, for me and I think for anyone involved would be if we could do something truly spectacular. We've been talking about it for a couple years and there's always been this idea, a big idea, in the back of my head that we've been talking about.

The idea itself, the notion of what the next Tron could be, is exciting enough that it would be worth going back to do it. Obviously we hinted some things at the end of Legacy, it's kind of there for people to see what that potential is. So we just want to make sure that we have a script that delivers on that promise on an epic scale."

I've said it would have to be our Empire Strikes Back for me to come back and for me to pull the whole team back together. I think we do have that idea. We do have the idea that feels big and really blows the doors off this franchise. It's hinted at promises of something for two movies now, for thirty years, so it's time to deliver on that.

But the script's got to be at a level that makes it worth going back for, because it's a lot of work to make a movie like this and it's a multi-year project. So we've got our writer Jesse Wigutow on it right now writing, and fingers crossed if it all comes together, as we hope it will, there could be another Tron in the next few years, and it's going to be awesome.

So however much time has passed since Legacy came out would also have transpired in the real world. So it will still be contemporary. So let's say if the Tron sequel comes out later, then four or five years have passed since the last movie.

Sometimes with these things all the pieces fall into place. I mean, we've been talking about this for years and we don't have the script now, but sometimes things fall into place very quickly, and if everything lines up it could happen.

Any film is a collaborative process, you've got thousands and thousands of people working on it.

Hopefully, great science fiction films help you think about issues that relate to yourself, whether it's: What's my purpose? Why am I here? What is it that makes me who I am? Those are the kind of questions my favorite science fiction films ask.

I love movies that ask big questions but don't necessarily answer everything. I like people walking out thinking about something.

You never want to intentionally make a confusing movie.

It's important to listen to those around you, and ultimately you have to decide which path you're going to go down.

Obviously, there are lots of lessons to be learned on a first movie.

For me the Blu-ray version is kind of the definitive version of the movie.

Certainly there's pressure while your making the movie.

You want the film to be critically successful - you certainly want the film to be financially successful so that you can...well, because that's how movies like this are made, you know, they need to make money. But as a director, you can only make the movie that you want to make.

I think that while you're making the film it's important to just keep your eye on the ball and make the best movie you can, and then realize that it's out of your control.

I was always looking for a career that could combine my creative interests with my technical side, and it ends up directing films is the perfect combination.

The movies I make and my interests are always about pushing the technology as far as we can in support of telling great stories and showing an audience things they haven't seen before.

I don't wear glasses, so I like the idea of not having to put them on to watch a movie. It's a hard barrier to get beyond.

I heard, one of my producers told me this story where like the Hollywood studios brought all these high-end consultants in to try to figure out how to improve their process and make films more efficiently, and these consultants like studied the process for years and finally came up with this report they put together about how studios can improve the efficiency of their process, and the conclusion was "have the script ready by the time you're shooting.

I'd like to have the script in a much better place from day one of shooting, rather than trying to continue to work on it while you shoot it. I think those are lessons you learn on any film.

When I was in architecture school, rather than giving us drafting boards and t-squares and lead pencils and stuff they gave us all the same tools that places like Digital Domain and ILM used to make features films or special effects. They gave us all these digital tools like Alias and Mya and Soft Image and all these kind of high-end computers, so I came out of architecture school knowing how to use all that stuff. And I started making short films at night.

I always had some kind of creative side and technical side, and I thought architecture might be the way to combine them, so I went to architecture school in New York.

I grew up in a place where no one knew anyone in the entertainment business, I never knew it was an actual career.

So Disney has their full support behind it, which is great, but again it's got to be the right story. It's got to be a script that's up to snuff and worth going back for. The idea's there, the ambition's there, the excitement's there; but we need to have all the pieces in place before they would ever pull the trigger on that.

I think some people are under the impression that you can simply just shoot it on blue, and then it's all done in post. But no, you really need to understand the pipeline, from beginning to end.

But I grew up in a place where no one knew anyone in the entertainment business, I never knew it was an actual career. The closest I ever got to movies was going to watch them, and I thought that's the way it would be, so I never considered working in this business.

Listen, whatever makes the movie better. That's the attitude you have to have.

Once I got out of architecture school I decided not to be an architect, I just started my own little design studio.

In a science fiction movie, the first act is a little longer than it is in most movies because there is so much world building to do.

That's the tricky thing these days: being able to surprise people.

Of course there are always exceptions, but opinions are not to be feared.

It's a fine line to find that balance: to show people enough to give them the promise of something unique, and something they want to see, but at the same time make sure that when they show up for the movie, they're surprised by what they eventually get.

Technology can do amazing things for us. It's something we need to keep an eye on.

I don't think every movie should be made in 3-D, and it should depend on whether it's one of these films that's more immersive or needs to be taken to another world. I'm interested in other formats.

An established property can be a blessing and a challenge. On one hand you have all those fans of the original that you can pick up with and continue on with but then you have a lot of people out there who haven't seen the first and might feel like this isn't a movie for them because of that.

You never watch movies the same as you do when you're a kid, ever again.

You won't believe how many people have congratulated me around the world for shooting a movie in 2D. It's bizarre. It's the strangest thing.

I'm a huge electronic-music fan.

For me, I feel like, between 'Tron' and 'Oblivion,' I've gotten to fulfill my 'Star Wars' fantasies, in a way.

As a director, if you know what you want, then it's not scary.

There are a lot of limitations so you have to ultimately focus on what you think the most important storyline is.

Disney's clearly in the business of doing giant tent pole movies based on properties that they own. And that's what they should be doing because they're great at doing that.

I think the excitement of movies is discovering stuff you weren't expecting, and I hope to preserve that.

Go out and make something that reflects your interests, your taste, and your ideas. No one will pay you to make something until you have a few things you can show that you've directed. I got my start by making short films on my own.