As a producer, I probably am a little stronger than most, since I was a director originally.

I was young, so I was part of youth culture. The years went by, I became older and no longer part of youth culture, and I became more dependent upon the young people in the office and my own children.

In order to create art today, you have to compromise your art somewhat and be a businessman.

When I started, every film got a full theatrical distribution. Today, almost no low budget films, maybe two or three a year, will get a full theatrical distribution. We've been frozen out of that, which means they must be aware that for a full theatrical distribution it either has to be something like Saw or some exploitation film of today or an extremely well made personal film.

First, you have to be intelligent. I have never met a successful director who isn't intelligent. A director who is not intelligent might have one hit picture, but he won't be able to follow it up. So I look for intelligence.

Martin Scorsese was one of the few who had not been an assistant. Most of the guys had been an assistant and worked their way up. But I had seen an underground picture he had made in New York, a black-and-white film. I had done a picture for American International, about a Southern woman bandit, the Ma Barker story, and it was very successful, and I had left to start my own company, and they wanted me to make another one.

One of the worst things you can do is have a limited budget and try to do some big looking film. That's when you end up with very bad work.