When you raise the budget, you make creative compromises. The higher the budget goes, the more cuts in your movie happen. When people talk about how movies are watered down, that's a direct reflection of money and budget. The less money you spend; the more risks you can take. That doesn't mean it will be successful, but at least you can try different stuff. The higher your budget is, the less you can do that.

A lot of the reasons why people are annoyed at found footage movies is because people look at it like it's easy and that they could do it, too.

Directors typically have three choices - you do a studio movie and get a paycheck up front, you do an independent movie, which is for your heart and you don't get paid up front and probably don't make any money on it, but it hopefully goes to Sundance and is more of an art movie, and then you do TV.

I found that a lot of people ridiculed contemporary art. I decided I wanted to be involved in art everybody could understand.

Currently there's no other way to get a movie into 3,000 theaters except with a studio. We have a first-look deal with Universal, and it's been fun to work with them. But studios are a part of our life. I think they'll always be, but they'll play a different role. The consumer and the creator are getting closer together.

People love being scared, even for long periods of time.

I'm a believer in screening movies early, and using the movie itself to help sell the movie. If you can't do that, I feel like you shouldn't be releasing the movie.