I lose tons of stuff on the cutting room floor. For Scary Movie 3, for example, we had a lot of Matrix spoofs, a Hulk scene, and some of that stuff just doesn't hold up - it's too much plot, audiences just didn't want to hear about it.

I don't think there has been any increase in sophistication in the audience. When people are aware of a concept that's easy to understand, and there's an actor who will attract them to the theater and it's a movie that's funny three-quarters of the time, it will be successful.

I don't know if I'd want to do that anymore, because you always get bigger laughs on college campuses. So, when the film plays in front of a city audience, you've probably cut too loosely.

I lose tons of stuff on the cutting room floor. For Scary Movie 3, for example, we had a lot of Matrix spoofs, a Hulk scene, and some of that stuff just doesn't hold up - it's too much plot, audiences just didn't want to hear about it.

Chevy Chase and Bill Murray - we thought those guys were funny. We love Bill Murray, but we didn't think they were right for Airplane! because it would step on the joke if there was a known comedian.

I believe in justice, maybe not in this life, but there has to be justice. And if there isn't a God, I think it would be very depressing. I'd prefer to believe there is.

Our producer Jon Davison thought it would be a good idea to put in additional TV scenes. So, they sent me a tape of these additional TV scenes, and I watched them, and I didn't think they were that great. I didn't think it was worth putting them in.

I think we grew up thinking that the funniest things on TV were the old, serious movies. I always liked the Marx Brothers, but the thing that always made us laugh were movies like Zero Hour. That's what inspired us.

Woody Allen has done some excellent serious movies, too, like Crimes And Misdemeanors. Very overlooked movie, I think, and really his best. And currently I like Big Fish!

I think up until the point when we started in the business, which was in the early '70s, most of the humor was political. The smart humor was political satire.

I think that came out of watching all those serious movies for all that time. If you watch a movie like Zero Hour, Sterling Hayden is pretty funny, and so are the guys in the cockpit.

So, it didn't do well. But now when I talk to kids who are first seeing it, they're surprised to hear the movie failed at the box office. Sometimes that's what happens.

What I would do is a 10-minute short of some kind on video, and if it's good enough, you get it passed around town and just get some attention, so then they'll read what you have.

Tim Burton is underrated. I loved Big Fish, loved that movie, think it's the best movie of the year, hands down. Really impressed with that.

You know, OJ was a really nice guy, and he knew his lines. He was nice to everybody on the set. He got to be a better actor, I thought, with every movie.

I've always thought those guys are really funny. And I love Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin and Mary.

I don't take reviews very seriously, but in their totality I think they are representative of how the audience feels, and of what their reaction is. There's always one guy who doesn't get it.

Sometimes, if you really want to try something original, you step a little too far out of bounds. I mean, there's a market force that kind of unconsciously keeps you in line a little bit.

I would love to work with Adam Sandler. Because then all I'd have to do is just turn the camera on and off.

We didn't realize it at the time, but the release date, the ad campaign and the poster are so important.

I don't really know a lot of famous people. I've met a lot of famous people. If I ran into Tom Hanks today, I would have to remind him who I was and he would then remember me. But he wouldn't come up to me and say, "Hi Dave!"

We're producing a movie now, 'The Onion' Movie, and it's very difficult for me to be on the set. If I'm not right in the trenches, it's very difficult for me to watch another director, because I'm not involved and it's not exciting.

The only one that got through was Jimmy Walker, because he plays the gas station attendant. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it, it's just that we were kind of purists at the time, and we didn't want any comedians.

Our fathers were actually business partners in the same real-estate firm, and we got together and thought, How can we get a movie together and get distribution and create a new movie genre? We started by making satires of commercials.

There would always be a vote. There were always conflicts and arguments for years and years - that's why we're not together anymore. But there was always a vote. It was always two out of three.

Oh yeah, I believe in God. I think there's much more evidence that there is a God than that there isn't. I don't believe that Mother Theresa and Hitler go to the same place.

I think once we started directing separately - we each have different kinds of interests now, and the kinds of movies we want to do. I wouldn't hold your breath for that one.

It didn't happen every time for every movie. Ruthless People was a good movie, but we didn't get a good release or marketing. They completely blew the opening.

Quit now, you'll never make it. If you disregard this advice, you'll be halfway there.

Everything about it worked, and I don't mean just the movie, but in our experience, we realized there's also a component of luck involved in this business. We had absolutely the most competent people in the studio working on the release and ad campaign.

It's useless to try and make rhyme or reason of it, because one guy thinks one thing and the other guy sees a whole other thing. So I try not to take them too seriously. Lately I have them screened so I only read the positive ones.

I don't really know a lot of famous people. I've met a lot of famous people. If I ran into Tom Hanks today, I would have to remind him who I was and he would then remember me. But he wouldn't come up to me and say, 'Hi Dave!'

We're making a commercial Hindi film catering to all types of audiences.

I wonder if that's hurt me at the box office. Maybe audiences these days want to know exactly what to expect when they go into a movie, and my movies are hard to explain in just one way.

Audiences always sound like they're glad to see me, and I'm damned glad to see them.

What I wanted to do was to get that sense of being in touch with this lost world while holding onto what draws readers and audiences there in the first place.

We make films that we ourselves would want to see and then hope that other people would want to see it. If you try to analyze audiences or think there's some sophisticated recipe for success, then I think you are doomed. You're making it too complicated.

Sylvester has a great popular sense, as good as any writer I've ever worked with. He knows what audiences want to see, and what they don't want to see.

Phish and Dave Matthews really know their audiences and really treat them well.

We were tremendously encouraged by the testing of Analyze That. Audiences loved it. They were telling us that they liked it as much as the original. We recorded the laughs in the theater.

Anyway, I collapsed in France in the middle of a tour. I hadn't been eating properly, I was getting very phobic about audiences, and I collapsed in pure fright.

Though I am still very vulnerable to audiences - and it happens all the time - where for some reason the energy doesn't connect and, since the film is very personal, obviously I am made to feel very vulnerable by that.

I don't pay attention to target audiences and therefore I often hear that I am a ratings killer, somebody who fundamentally doesn't care whether one person is watching or an entire soccer stadium.

I want to do what I want when I want to do it not be dictated to by audiences.

I also want to return to doing stand-up. I've become frightened of live audiences. This is a really telling sign that I need to go back on the comedy circuit again.

For me to go back and to play for audiences some of whom have been following me for thirty years and some who have found me in the last five or six years, that's really an interesting thing. I have an audience that goes from kids to seventy year olds.

When audiences come to see us authors lecture, it is largely in the hope that we'll be funnier to look at than to read.

I like cinema audiences. I respect them, and I talk to them just like I would anybody I know.

The difference between critics and audiences is that one is a group of humans and one is not.