Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" The people with mean things to say, say them. At the end of the day, the mean things and the good things only drive viewership. So what do you want? You want the ratings. "
Craig Zadan
Good Things
Drive
Good
Related Quotes:
" Live TV is the future. It's the only way you can beat the DVRing of America. Everything is DVRed, and no one watches stuff when it's on. Awards shows and sports are watched when they're broadcast. "
Craig Zadan
Sports
America
Future
" We'd go to studios with ideas to do movie musicals and they'd literally kick us out. They said, 'Audiences aren't interested in movie musicals. You're wasting our time.' "
Craig Zadan
Time
Said
Ideas
" We called the head of CBS and said, 'We know how network television feels about musicals. Would you even consider doing 'Gypsy?'' He said, 'If I did say yes, you'd have to have a big movie star who does not do TV.' I told him that, in our fantasy world, we'd like Bette Midler. He said, 'Get Bette Midler, and you have an on-the-air commitment.' "
Craig Zadan
Say
Doing
Commitment
" We've spoken to a lot of friends who are stars who could be great, and they say to us, 'Look, if you were doing a movie musical, and we could pre-record and lip-synch, sure. But live? So if we hit a bad note it's there for posterity? We're not going to go out there without a safety net.' People are scared to death of that. "
Craig Zadan
Death
Live
Look
" We have a particular philosophy in the casting room that we don't really tell the actors - the actors tell us. "
Craig Zadan
Philosophy
Casting
Us
" We wanted to take on social and political and LGBTQ stories which no one at the upper level of the entertainment industry ever really wants to do. So you have to fight, and you have to persuade, and you have to manipulate the studios and the networks. And you have to go back - over and over again - until they say yes. "
Craig Zadan
You
Yes
Back
" A lot of people feel that 'Music Man' is a good movie musical. "
Craig Zadan
Music
Movie
Man
" If anything's going to go wrong, it'd go wrong during 'Peter Pan,' not 'The Sound of Music.' "
Craig Zadan
Go
Wrong
Sound
" What usually happens on the Oscar telecast is that as soon as best picture is announced, everyone is up out of their seats and running off to their parties. "
Craig Zadan
Best
Everyone
Off
" I was captivated by Stephanie Mills. "
Craig Zadan
Mills
Captivated
" I think maybe the most important thing that we have to say is that people don't often talk about network executives being brave. You don't talk about them as having integrity and a higher purpose, because it's a job... except for Bob Greenblatt. He is a theatre person. He loves and understands it. "
Craig Zadan
Integrity
Purpose
People
" I don't think we're going to break the law in terms of what you can or can't do on TV. We're looking to do something edgy, different, and special. "
Craig Zadan
Looking
Law
Edgy
" When you work on a passion project, there's always the chance that you'll get your heart broken. "
Craig Zadan
Passion
Chance
Broken
" The truth of the matter is - when we look at things - every movie we do - no matter what the subject matter is - we go to the universal theme of family. We always go to that because if the movie is about family, then any audience can relate to it. "
Craig Zadan
Look
Truth
Family
" 'Chicago' kind of set the bar in terms of how we approach musicals, and tone is one of the key elements. "
Craig Zadan
Bar
Chicago
Key
" When we did 'Chicago' and we announced Renee Zellweger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Richard Gere, and Queen Latifah, everybody went crazy and said, 'What are they doing? What are they thinking?' And, now, you look at the movie, and you see that we chose the people that we wanted for that movie, and we were so proud of all of them. "
Craig Zadan
People
Queen
Proud
" To battle the odds - loss of interest, no funding, discouragement - requires someone who doesn't give up. "
Craig Zadan
Battle
Loss
Odds
" We couldn't even contemplate doing 'Hairspray' without a live audience. "
Craig Zadan
Audience
Doing
Even
" The future for us is not to go bigger but to go different. "
Craig Zadan
Go
Different
Bigger
" It is very, very important that people understand that you can tell different kinds of stories, and they do, related to gay and lesbian issues - especially when you know the people behind them. "
Craig Zadan
Tell
You
Gay
" In the past, once a movie musical was made, it was believed that you were left with that version, good or bad, for posterity. "
Craig Zadan
Bad
In The Past
You
" There were no TV musicals until we did Bette Midler 'Gypsy,' and the success of that opened the door for us to do the rest. "
Craig Zadan
Door
Success
Musicals
" Some filmmakers set out to re-create the theater experience they got on Broadway. They kept everything the same. They shot the original casts. We reinvent the whole thing, look at it solely as a movie. We pretend that nobody saw 'Chicago' or 'Hairspray.' "
Craig Zadan
Nobody
Chicago
Same
" We have a great musical sequence in episode five of 'Smash' called 'Let's Be Bad,' and it probably is the closest to 'Chicago' that I think any of us have ever experienced. "
Craig Zadan
Great
Chicago
Five
" It's expensive to produce musicals on television. "
Craig Zadan
Musicals
Expensive
Television
" It rests in the hands of 'Dreamgirls' and 'Hairspray.' If they're successful, we'll be back on track - people will continue to greenlight musicals. If they don't work, then you're going to see everyone go back to the way it was before 'Chicago.' "
Craig Zadan
Successful
You
Hands
" I don't understand how other producers who have no experience making a musical jump in and produce one. "
Craig Zadan
Experience
Other
Understand
" We zero in on family as a theme because it makes the movies emotionally available to a universal audience. "
Craig Zadan
Audience
Family
Movies
" We're finding that the casting of 'A Few Good Men' is different from the musicals because the kind of actors that you need to do it are movie actors, basically. "
Craig Zadan
Good
You
Need
" Carrie Underwood clearly drove 'The Sound of Music.' For 'Peter Pan,' we had terrific actors but not stars, and we did not do nearly as well. "
Craig Zadan
Sound
Stars
Clearly