"The audience wants to be attracted not by the critics, but by a great story. You must deliver to the audience emotion - and when I say emotion, I mean suspense, drama, love"
About this Quote
The subtext is transactional in a way that sounds almost tender. “Attracted” makes the audience a moving target, not a classroom. You don’t persuade them with arguments; you pull them with force. And his definition of “emotion” is tellingly specific: suspense, drama, love. Not “ideas,” not “message,” not even “truth.” He’s naming the dependable engines of attention that travel across languages and markets, which fits De Laurentiis’s career as an international impresario shepherding big, exportable spectacles (from Fellini to King Kong) through shifting tastes.
There’s also a quiet rebuke to filmmakers who make movies for the conversation around movies. De Laurentiis isn’t anti-art; he’s anti-vanity. He’s insisting that craft is measured by effect: can you make people feel something on purpose, at scale, in real time? The quote works because it’s bluntly populist without sounding dumb: it reduces cinema to its most primal contract, then dares you to meet it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Movie |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Laurentiis, Dino De. (2026, January 17). The audience wants to be attracted not by the critics, but by a great story. You must deliver to the audience emotion - and when I say emotion, I mean suspense, drama, love. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-audience-wants-to-be-attracted-not-by-the-59239/
Chicago Style
Laurentiis, Dino De. "The audience wants to be attracted not by the critics, but by a great story. You must deliver to the audience emotion - and when I say emotion, I mean suspense, drama, love." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-audience-wants-to-be-attracted-not-by-the-59239/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The audience wants to be attracted not by the critics, but by a great story. You must deliver to the audience emotion - and when I say emotion, I mean suspense, drama, love." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-audience-wants-to-be-attracted-not-by-the-59239/. Accessed 8 Feb. 2026.





