How to be successful in Hollywood, according to movie legend Roger Corman

“Somebody who is working on a basis of pure art is forgetting the fact that it costs a lot of money to make a motion picture,” he said. “You must be aware of what is going on in the world and what is going on in the business of motion pictures. You must recognize certain genres, certain pictures that have records of winning and losing, and you must think about that in your planning right from the beginning. Yet at the same time you must be aware that just repeating what has been successful in the past doesn't work. Even from a business standpoint you must have something original, you must include the creativity. It's good business to include creativity into your business planning.”

“‘Death Race’ started out as a futuristic car-racing picture in which drivers knocked each other off the road,” Corman said. “Car-racing pictures have always done well yet at the same time I feel I must bring something original, I can't make the same car-racing picture over and over. Cars knocking each other off the road brought an element of originality, but then I thought it needed something even more outrageous and that brought in the killing of the pedestrians. Nobody had ever made a car-racing picture where the drivers got points for killing pedestrians, so it followed some of my thinking in that I was working in a genre of car-racing pictures but I was bringing something new to a successful genre.”

“One of the basic rules is never put your own money into a picture,” Corman said. “But I have put my own money into the pictures. If you believe in what you’re making, fight against that general rule.”