Studios just sometimes make decisions on their own that you’re always flabbergasted by. It just happens that way for whatever reason – not even pointing fingers, it just is.
BARRY LEVINSONI think test screening works at its best when the audience knows what it’s getting.
More Barry Levinson Quotes
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I do know when you look at some ballplayer and all of a sudden he is the size of a truck something is wrong.
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When I began to think about the head of the family, the storyteller, the rise of television which became the new storyteller, the break-up of the American family as an idea and then Avalon came.
BARRY LEVINSON -
First of all, just to get Diner made would have been an achievement in that I got a chance to direct.
BARRY LEVINSON -
I play around with human things, human relationships and that, and allow that kind of talk to work in that way, on that level.
BARRY LEVINSON -
I don’t know that you can do an absurdist film and just have everybody embrace it in terms of filling out cards. I just don’t think it happens. So you have to prepare an audience.
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I don’t know that you can do it as a satire. I mean, the business is crazy enough as it is. It’s like doing Wag The Dog – we took a thing that was almost completely absurd on one level, and then ultimately those things came about.
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I’ve had a lot of movies that didn’t get great numbers on test screening, but a lot of times the film was able to survive, or the studio still stayed and supported it.
BARRY LEVINSON -
I thought a great line in the What Just Happened movie said, “We’re just the mayonnaise.”
BARRY LEVINSON -
I think we are seeing a radical shift in the business in general. The studios are making much more of the real big extravaganzas and there are other kinds of films that are coming out. I think you are going to begin to see more diversification that we’ve seen in the past.
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I worked at a local television station and I got a chance to direct and do all those things – worked kiddie shows, Ranger House show with the hand puppets and things like that.
BARRY LEVINSON -
I think it’s a promising time which will show a lot of diversification that we’ve seen in the past.
BARRY LEVINSON -
I think when Sarah Palin opened her mouth and started talking, the more she talked, the less appealing she became.
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There was a time when I said, “I’m going to go do a television thing,” after doing all these theatrical films, and heard, “Television? Why are you going to go back to television?” It’s an interesting place.
BARRY LEVINSON -
No one really has the power, and everybody’s trying to get through the day, and everybody’s nervous and desperate.
BARRY LEVINSON -
I got involved with an acting school and studied for a couple years. They used to have improv exercises that you would work on and you would do improvs.
BARRY LEVINSON