Andrew Niccol Quotes (13 Quotes)

The Wild West mentality is still strong in America, ... especially if you go to a place like Texas, where it's alive and well, or maybe unwell 'No one's taking away our guns.' In New Zealand, no one has a handgun, and they aren't saying, 'Gee, I wish I had one.' I hope the United States takes note that the murder rate is lower where gun availability is lower. It seems obvious to me.

It's so startling to know that the permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations are the biggest arms dealers in the world, so they are really the

We live vicariously through celebrities. People used to say that celebrities are America's royalty now I think celebrities are the world's royalty.

It made hard-core people harder core, ... Ultimately it had a good effect because it made such nonsense of so many views about guns.

You have two choices when someone changes your work. You can either wash your hands of it or embrace it.

The U.S. is by far the biggest exporter of arms in the world. It was true during the Clinton administration, and it's true during the Bush administration. It's bipartisan.

We hear so much about weapons of mass destruction. But nine out of 10 war victims are killed by guns. It's the AK-47 that's a weapon of mass destruction.

You open a newspaper and see a picture taken in a war somewhere, and there's a gun in somebody's hand,

Nine out of 10 war victims die from a gun.

Normally what you do is that you start with three tanks and you would use replication and you computer generate the other tanks, ... But here, they were so available I could use real tanks. It was cheaper to get real tanks in the Czech Republic than to make the fake ones that I would normally use computer generated imagery to do. In fact, we had to call NATO and warn them about that scene, because it looked like a weapons build-up in the Czech Republic.

I can't convince anyone it isn't CGI, ... Actually, I went to the Czech Republic and found a guy who owns, privately, 100 Russian T-72 tanks. It was no problem to lend them to me, but he needed them back to sell to Libya. I also had to inform NATO we were filming there. Someone in the Pentagon could have been looking at satellite images and noticed an arms buildup.

There's a vanity, ... Almost like Mafia guys who love 'The Godfather' and don't see it as an indictment against them. Some arms dealers will see this film and think it glorifies them. They'll just be questioning how authentic it is.

In a way, my film is a how-to about becoming an arms dealer, ... During the making of it, I needed guns in the Czech Republic, and it was cheaper to use real guns than replicas. I bought 3,000 Kalashnikovs and then sold them back at a loss. I wouldn't make a very good arms dealer.