There's a theory in gameplay, particularly in first person shooters, that sometimes you don't want to have that much of a character because then it destroys the experience of the player being that character.
It's ironic: In movies, the most successful films of all time have been sci-fi or fantasy. By far. But a lot of people won't even read science fiction books.
I always felt that if we ever encountered an alien species, they wouldn't look like us or even be humanoid, like 'E.T.'
When Superman was originally created, by Siegel and Shuster, they were two Jewish immigrants that were desperately trying to assimilate into America. They were having a hard time because they were Jewish. They wanted to get in to mainstream publishing but they couldn't. That's why they, and a lot of Jewish guys, went into comic books.
I will say that adapting a character like Da Vinci really wasn't that dissimilar from doing Batman or Superman. Because all three of these guys are really iconic figures, and yes, Da Vinci was historical, but there's clearly been a lot of mythmaking about him, and a lot of things have been attributed to him that may or may not have happened.
I think I regard any history in quotes, because just like science, we're constantly revising science, we're constantly revising history. There's no question that various victors throughout history have flat out lied about certain events or written themselves into things, and then you come along and you find out that this disproves that.
You have to decide what kind of story you're going to tell. For instance I would argue a movie like 'Toy Story 3,' which isn't realistic at all, is really emotional and involving. It just depends. I played this game called 'Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP' for iPad that is totally old school 8-bit, which I found very moving.
I think if we ever encountered aliens, even communicating with them would be really, really difficult.
Hollywood loves pre-validation. Even if someone has a property that was first published as a comic book that sold only 5,000 copies, for Hollywood, that is a stamp of approval. 'Oh, it was already published in another medium? Must be good!' They get assurance from knowing that someone else already took the risk.
I like telling stories of imperfect people because most people are imperfect.
I honestly love nothing better than digging into a really good serialized show, whether it's 'Breaking Bad' or 'Game of Thrones' or 'Justified.'
I relate to the feeling that Da Vinci was often plagued by the idea that what he did wasn't good enough, that he was his harshest critic. He'd sometimes destroy what he was working on.
'Flash Forward' was one of the big heartbreaks of my career. It was just this very frustrating experience. If we'd been allowed to tell the story we wanted to tell, I don't know that it would've been more successful or not. There's no way to know.
It took a while for the first 'Blade' to get made, and Marvel decided they liked the Whistler character so much, when Blade guest starred on the 'Spider-Man' cartoon, they put Whistler on the cartoon, and the movie hadn't come out yet.
People have a very proprietary relationship with Superman. It's important to respect the iconography and the canon, but at the same time, you have to tell a story. Once you land on who you think the character is and what his conflicts are, you have to let that lead you.
