David Zucker Quotations

Quit now, you'll never make it. If you disregard this advice, you'll be halfway there.

I don't really know a lot of famous people. I've met a lot of famous people. If I ran into Tom Hanks today, I would have to remind him who I was and he would then remember me. But he wouldn't come up to me and say, "Hi Dave!

We didn't realize it at the time, but the release date, the ad campaign and the poster are so important.

I think up until the point when we started in the business, which was in the early 70s, most of the humor was political. The smart humor was political satire.

It didn't happen every time for every movie. Ruthless People was a good movie, but we didn't get a good release or marketing. They completely blew the opening.

Oh yeah, I believe in God. I think there's much more evidence that there is a God than that there isn't. I don't believe that Mother Theresa and Hitler go to the same place.

I lose tons of stuff on the cutting room floor. For Scary Movie 3, for example, we had a lot of Matrix spoofs, a Hulk scene, and some of that stuff just doesn't hold up - it's too much plot, audiences just didn't want to hear about it.

We're producing a movie now, 'The Onion' Movie, and it's very difficult for me to be on the set. If I'm not right in the trenches, it's very difficult for me to watch another director, because I'm not involved and it's not exciting.

I believe in justice, maybe not in this life, but there has to be justice. And if there isn't a God, I think it would be very depressing. I'd prefer to believe there is.

I would love to work with Adam Sandler. Because then all I'd have to do is just turn the camera on and off.

Tim Burton is underrated. I loved Big Fish, loved that movie, think it's the best movie of the year, hands down. Really impressed with that.

So, it didn't do well. But now when I talk to kids who are first seeing it, they're surprised to hear the movie failed at the box office. Sometimes that's what happens.

The only one that got through was Jimmy Walker, because he plays the gas station attendant. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just that we were kind of purists at the time, and we didn't want any comedians.

I don't know if I'd want to do that anymore, because you always get bigger laughs on college campuses. So, when the film plays in front of a city audience, you've probably cut too loosely.

Our producer Jon Davison thought it would be a good idea to put in additional TV scenes. So, they sent me a tape of these additional TV scenes, and I watched them, and I didn't think they were that great. I didn't think it was worth putting them in.

Woody Allen has done some excellent serious movies, too, like Crimes And Misdemeanors. Very overlooked movie, I think, and really his best. And currently I like Big Fish!

I've always thought those guys are really funny. And I love Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin and Mary.

I think we grew up thinking that the funniest things on TV were the old, serious movies. I always liked the Marx Brothers, but the thing that always made us laugh were movies like Zero Hour. That's what inspired us.

Sometimes, if you really want to try something original, you step a little too far out of bounds. I mean, there's a market force that kind of unconsciously keeps you in line a little bit.

There would always be a vote. There were always conflicts and arguments for years and years - that's why we're not together anymore. But there was always a vote. It was always two out of three.

What I would do is a 10-minute short of some kind on video, and if it's good enough, you get it passed around town and just get some attention, so then they'll read what you have.

You know, OJ was a really nice guy, and he knew his lines. He was nice to everybody on the set. He got to be a better actor, I thought, with every movie.

Chevy Chase and Bill Murray - we thought those guys were funny. We love Bill Murray, but we didn't think they were right for Airplane! because it would step on the joke if there was a known comedian.

Everything about it worked, and I don't mean just the movie, but in our experience, we realized there's also a component of luck involved in this business. We had absolutely the most competent people in the studio working on the release and ad campaign.

I don't take reviews very seriously, but in their totality I think they are representative of how the audience feels, and of what their reaction is. There's always one guy who doesn't get it.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

We held everything until then and knew we had about nine months after that to get it done.

Sure, we'll be working on Scary Movie 5 , but we'll wait until the material swells up in the next year. There will be enough movies out there to pick from.

We'll make up our own guy with our own super powers. It will be an original thing, but people will be comfortable in that superhero world. It can't be a joke power, because you can't sustain it. We have a lot of rules you have to follow. If it's a joke power, it's a joke one time and can't continue to be funny. These will have to be real powers. I love the fact that Spider-Man got bitten by something and that gave him super powers. We're watching every movie that came out, and it's a genre that's ripe. Look at all the similarities in ... X-Men, Batman, Fantastic Four, Superman, all of them have common stories. I think there's something funny there, too.

Our fathers were actually business partners in the same real-estate firm, and we got together and thought, How can we get a movie together and get distribution and create a new movie genre? We started by making satires of commercials.

It's useless to try and make rhyme or reason of it, because one guy thinks one thing and the other guy sees a whole other thing. So I try not to take them too seriously. Lately I have them screened so I only read the positive ones.

I think once we started directing separately - we each have different kinds of interests now, and the kinds of movies we want to do. I wouldn't hold your breath for that one.

I think that came out of watching all those serious movies for all that time. If you watch a movie like Zero Hour, Sterling Hayden is pretty funny, and so are the guys in the cockpit.

Anna never cracks up. She knows that if I need her to take that baseball, she'll do it. You can't get a stunt double. It wouldn't be funny to have a stunt double from behind.

The studio just wanted us to throw in something as a tease. I didn't object.

I'm thrilled that people had as much fun seeing the movie as we did making it. I couldn't be happier about this very strong opening.