I made a decision back in 1978 that, in a trade off for money when I directed Halloween, I would have my name above the title in order to basically brand these movies my own.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I think before 'Saw' came along, there really wasn't a movie franchise that actually went out there and said, 'We're going to come out with one every year during Halloween and make that our trademark.'
I'd never really considered film. If I'd thought about film more growing up, I probably would have changed my name. I had no concept of my name in lights.
I have registered few titles like 'Bharat Bandh,' 'Calendar Girl,' 'Money Politics.' The titles just intrigued me, so I registered. I had a title, 'Jai Ho,' which I gave to Sohail Khan for his next film with Salman Khan. These are typical Madhur Bhandarkar kind of films. I may make a film or not on such titles... not sure yet.
People say, 'I love 'Snatch,' I love 'Lock Stock,' but I want to be more than a movie name. I'd love to be more of a household name.
I never wanted to be a brand director. I didn't want that kind of stamp. I wanted to be more like Pacino or Dustin Hoffman or Meryl Streep or De Niro - you know, a chameleon as a storyteller - because I love all kinds of movies.
I was offered a choice of a flat salary up front or a percentage of the film's future earnings. I took the up front money. Nobody could have figured what Halloween would ultimately become.
I'm flattered if any movie role and my name are mentioned in the same sentence, because there haven't been a ton of them.
I wanted to take on my full name, which was sort of a crazy thing to do considering that we're in Hollywood.
I made 'Enemy' to prep myself for 'Prisoners.' I had the need to direct something smaller in English before going to Hollywood. That's the way I sold it to Warner because they asked me if I was berserk to make a movie right before.
I've always maintained my name will not define my films, my films will define my name. But I wish I was called Steve, or something else.