Off-Screen Quote #23 (Mark Cuban)

In light of the Dallas Mavericks winner there first NBA title last night I thought it would be fitting to find a quote from the teams controversal ower Mark Cuban—the Ted Turner of his day. As an entrepreneur who sold his Internet company vBroadcast.com years ago in a deal worth $5.7 billion, Cuban has a history of going against the grain and winning. Last night’s victory was the first NBA title for Mavericks in franchise history. On the film & TV side of things I can’t even keep up with all that Cuban in involved in, but here is an overview; In 2001 he launched HDNet, he’s part-owner in Landmark Theatres, and his IMDB credits are more than 20 films deep including the George Clooney directed Good Night, and Good Luck, the documentary Enron, The Smartest Guys in the Room, and Steven Soderbergh’s indie film Bubble. 

“If you’re looking where everybody else is looking, you’re looking in the wrong spot…Wherever I see people doing something the way it’s always been done, the way it’s ‘supposed’ to be done, following the same old trends, well, that’s just a big red flag to me to go look somewhere else.”
Mark Cuban
What I’ve Learned from Mark Cuban by Mike Sager
Esquire

If you’ve ever seen the Magnolia Pictures logo come onscreen of a movie you’re watching—well, Cuban has a piece of that as well. On camera he was a part of Dancing with the Stars in 2007, and has appeared on HBO’s Entourage. Cuban’s home base is in Dallas, Texas and if he ever said he bought the Hollywood sign and was moving it to the Big D he probably wouldn’t be joking. Remember Ted Turner was laughed at back in the 1980 when he launched CNN saying that no one was going to watch a channel that featured news all the time.

Now that he has a nice addition to his trophy case, that won’t be the last you hear of Mark Cuban.

Scott W. Smith