Movie Trivia Quotes

“Who found the material, who pursued the material and how, who bought the material, whose account is true or accurate: these might not seem consequential questions now. But they have definite implications on the other side of the film’s making and marketing, and in the wake of relationships that sustained, and relationships that broke, in the years after.”
― Glenn Kenny, Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas

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Irwin Winkler did not share the credit of “Producer.” He had the power to do that because he had control of the book’s movie rights. Barbara De Fina’s credit was changed to “Executive Producer.” Additionally, once CAA (Scorsese's talent agency) got into it, her profit participation points on the movie were decreased.

Recounting the situation thirty years after the fact, De Fina fumes. 'Winkler just — I mean, I — and everyone else that had been working on it. And then he wasn’t even there. He visited the set a few times, got his picture taken in the director’s chair.'

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― Glenn Kenny, Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas

“Barbara De Fina said that Irwin Winkler was, and has been, “nothing but nasty” to her. She told the story of a party that Winkler and his wife, Margo, attended; on seeing Barbara, Margo said, “The two producers are here,” and Winkler responded with words to the effect that there was only one producer. (De Fina retains affection for Margo, whom she calls “lovely.”)”
― Glenn Kenny, Made Men: The Story of Goodfellas

“And then came Jane Rosenthal (De Niro's handpicked CEO to oversee his production company). She had adored Rocky and Bullwinkle as a girl, and her husband, real estate investor Craig Hatkoff, had made a Valentine’s Day present to her of the collected series on DVD. She, like others before her, thought there was a potential film in Ward’s iconic characters and surreal sensibility, and in 1998 she negotiated a deal with Universal Pictures to acquire the rights and produce a $75 million film for the summer moviegoing season.”

...Fearless Leader, a role for which Rosenthal thought De Niro was perfect. When she asked him, she recalled, “he really laughed at me.… He didn’t grow up watching it. It wasn’t his thing.” But she persisted. “I was always joking with him about it. Then I finally said, ‘Okay, you’ve got to get serious here. It’s a three-week role. Do you want it or not?’ ” Amazingly—perhaps because he knew the film was, as he called it, “Jane’s baby”—he did.

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― Shawn Levy, De Niro: A Life

“The biggest takeaway from my long-distance relationship with Floyd Byars was that I optioned an original screenplay he had co-written with his writing partner, Laurie.
Another takeaway was a case of crabs picked up on our only vacation together in Zihuatanejo, Mexico.
I noticed a crab in my eyelashes when I was in the airplane bathroom on my way back to JFK. I feared these little critters might be other places as well, so I spent the next four hours squirming in my seat, itchy and miserable. On the taxi ride home, I made the driver stop at an all-night pharmacy so I could buy a bottle of Kwell.
But despite the footsies and the crabs, I liked the premise of his (their) Making Mr. Right script.”
― Susan Seidelman, Desperately Seeking Something: A Memoir About Movies, Mothers, and Material Girls