When you're making any movie, you have your hopes and expectations - but reality doesn't always conform with your hopes and expectations.
The challenge I think at first consideration is always a mixture of the creative opportunity and the finances. From the studio perspective, that's what they're looking to balance.
One of the hardest things for me as an exec was always, particularly as you progress further in the system, is that you're pushed further away from the day to day, the mechanics of making a movie.
We all know the experience when you go to a film and it feels partial. There were elements that you really love, but it doesn't feel like they fully owned all elements of it.
I really think the key to any movie is that you tell the story kind of in a fulsome way, with depth, with skill, and you will find your audience.
I think the key for us is really letting the stories we feel are best told to kind of dictate where we go. When we find a story we really believe is one that should be told, how do we best tell it and you know what do we need to tell that story most effectively? I think to the good, the universe is such that there are a lot of options, there a lot of opportunities. So that's kind of what's guiding us.
I think one of the mistakes that people historically have made in Hollywood, and there are countless examples of this, is making the assumption that if the movie worked before, if we just remake it it'll work again.
I think sequels are very dangerous if you assume and presume success. I think you have to plan each film as a standalone and commit yourself to that as your primary objective.
Ultimately as much as the film industry is a business, it's a democracy. And the audience votes on how they feel based on the way they spend their money for tickets.
I think you do have to attend to the sort of core values of film, which is that the audience wants to have a relationship with the characters, they want to understand what's going on there. There are certain things that comics can have a little bit more freedom in then when you're asking an audience to engage in it as a piece of cinema, but I do feel like the canvas is much bigger and wider and that we're being invited and frankly challenged to take risks, to be a little bit different. And that's fun, that's exciting.