CraveOnline: What sort of negative experiences can you have with a first-time director?
Jason Blum: Everything is negative, generally, with a first time director. [Laughs.] They haven’t done it before so their energy and their creative zhuzh is in the wrong place. I don’t know if that’s a word…
I was just thinking about how I was going to spell that.
I don’t know how you are going to write that. But their creative juices are in the wrong place. So there was a lot of talk about “I have to have a crane for this shot,” and if you directed seven movies you know there’s another way to do it without a crane. And there’s a lot of anxiety because you’re a first-time director, and it takes away… they forget that a director’s job is to tell a great story. They think about a lot of other things.
If the movie business made more sense you’d give a ton of money to first-time directors, and the more movies you’ve got under your belt, the less money you’d get. Because really, the people who need the most money are first-time directors. They need time, they need toys, they need tools, they need all the stuff that they don’t get so it’s not fair.
“If the movie business made more sense you’d give a ton of money to first-time directors, and the more movies you’ve got under your belt, the less money you’d get.”
So does any first-time director make it work? Because we see great movies from first-time directors…
Well, most of them don’t. Chances are it’s not going to, but like anything, there are some people who are incredibly talented who get past it. But the odds are not with you as a first-time director, as shown by [looking] at movies. But of course, thank God, there are exceptions to the rule and we have great movies. Thank God!
We’d be running out of directors left and right.
And by the way, there are a lot of first-time directors who directed a terrible first movie and a brilliant second. They had long careers after that. They learn and then they get much better. I like to have them after they’ve learned with somebody else but every so often I break my rule. [Laughs.]
