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

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.

The safest genre is the horror film. But the most unsafe - the most dangerous - is comedy. Because even if your horror film isn't very good, you'll get a few screams and you're okay. With a comedy, if they don't laugh, you're dead.

When I started in the late 1950s, every film I made - no matter how low the budget - got a theatrical release. Today, less that 20-percent of our films get a theatrical release.

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

I look for the ability to work. Directing is hard work. They don't teach you that in film school. Critics are not aware of it, but it is hard, physical work.

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.