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Even some of us who make movies underestimate their influence abroad. American movies sell American culture. Foreigners want to see American movies. But that's also why so many foreign governments and groups object to them.

Foreign revenues are tremendously important, but foreign audiences are dying for American movies, not for films they could make themselves.

Movies are something people see all over the world because there is a certain need for it.

I think it's important that nobody forgets that although Hollywood commercially dominates the world cinema, in fact what comes out of the filmmaking here is only a tiny slice out of the massive amount of operation that goes on around the world.

Cinema has become a global economy, totally international.

Movies are becoming more global, which is making them less intimate. If you make a movie for the world, you don't make it for any country.

Movies are the shadiest business in the world.

The American movie, in part because America's a melting pot, the cultural hodgepodge that America makes, generates movies that have appeal across all international boundaries. And that's really not true for most domestic film industries. It's no longer true of France and Italy, less true than it used to be of the U.K.

Movies are such an integral part of American culture. We're so spread out in this country, and movies offer us a chance to come together and have a communal experience.

Unfortunately, overall, movies are a conglomerate. People buy and sell people in this business, which can get really ugly.