Peter Bart Quotations

Study the public behavior of top stars and you can detect a keen attentiveness to brand value.

It's only in relatively recent years that Hollywood became the playground of multinational corporations which regard movies and TV shows as a minor irritant to their overall activity.

It really hasn't been demonstrated at any level by any major corporation that it can nurture what is euphemistically called creativity.

Historically, filmmakers always fall in love with every frame, but now that even neophytes are given final cut, this love affair carries with it serious economic implications.

Though gay lifestyles have certainly moved into the open, there's little evidence that society has become more open in its basic attitudes or that entertainers should feel cozy in emerging from the velvet underground.

Substantially fewer films will be produced over the next year or two. And a significant portion of the production costs of the reduced slate will be borne by hedge funds and other investment groups.

That's how you get surprises, because what movies are all about is surprises.

The green-light decision process today consists of maybe of 30 or 40 people.

Michael Eisner let it be known last week that he had no intention of leaving the entertainment business once he steps down as CEO of Disney in October.

A green-light meeting is when the decision is made finally whether or not to make a given picture.

The biggest danger of Hollywood becoming a purely corporate town resides in the creative process.

The major media companies are significantly reducing their financial commitment to the motion picture sector.

The green-light meeting, when I first started at Paramount, would consist of maybe three or four of us in a room. Perhaps two or three of us would have read the script under discussion.

The model today is that as much as 70 percent of the financing of the picture would come from overseas. Now we're beginning to run out of suckers, because there are not that many people overseas who are willing to put up more than half the money for a movie.

Hollywood is going to have to find a way of meeting those profit goals.

I wasn't hanging around the movie theaters in New York where I grew up, a Manhattan brat.

Most movie-goers are overdosing on star coverage; it's the ultimate example of too much information.

One of Brando's problems is that he can't have a conversation with anyone.

We're going to see a very, very commercial kind of picture-making.

Analyses of the movie marketplace points to an interesting phenomenon: High-profile movies are continuing to do well year-to-year in the U.S. and overseas - this past summer, for example, the top 10 movies registered at the same level as in '04.

Universal had hoped that 'Meet Joe Black' would be their big summer picture, and they just couldn't get it ready. So the only picture they had left for summer, basically, was 'Out Of Sight.' That was their big summer picture -- George Clooney picture. It didn't really work very well.

When I was at MGM some years ago, I remember that there was a serious discussion of trying to remake some of the (Spencer) Tracy and (Katharine) Hepburn pictures. And that's a great idea except that they were successful because of Tracy and Hepburn.

Or, if it opens on three screens, it's going to stay on those three screens for much of the summer. He's not going to be pushed around like most studios are pushed around.

The presumption is that he never will talk. People who know him say that.

There could be no replacement for Army, and no one will replace him, ... His niche and talents are very special.

The temptation to do remakes is simply that, if the picture worked once in the past, why not try it again?

something delicious about Warren Beatty, a well-known womanizer, making his debut in front of a bunch of nurses.

A lot of journalists who'd never dealt with Lucas, when they started competing ferociously for these stories, what they discovered is the land of Lucas is a very tightly controlled, rather rigorous domain.

Talent and role choice are most important. You can have tremendous publicity, but if you make one lousy movie after another, you're not going to get your price.

That's a little too much in the way of product opening on Christmas day, actually. They're going to bump each other off. That's a shame.

Do your homework and stand your ground.