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There is no guaranteed formula. And that's one of the interesting things about filmmaking. You could put $115 million in, and it doesn't guarantee success.

I don't know how to measure success. I have been fortunate that I got exciting films to do and work with talented directors who brought out the best in me.

I've made 30 movies and for the most part my movies work. In a business where success is an exception and not the rule, I've mostly been successful.

Directors only have instinct to work out of, because there is no formula. Formulas don't work. Actually, if you follow a formula, you will probably end up with a bad movie.

Obviously, I try to make the films work for an audience. That's the main point of making a film, and in retrospect, one can see that certain films, let's say Leaving Las Vegas, demonstrated its own success.

I like to think I'm making films in the film business where movies are making enough numbers for the studios to let me keep working, but you also want those films to have content that makes you proud you made the film. That's not easy, but it's a fun puzzle to figure out.

Making a film, every film, is a big gamble, large or small. The more that you do it, the more you're aware of that.

The amount of time you invest in a film is not directly proportional to its success.

You have a big success, and it's still not easy to make a movie.

And as a filmmaker, I'm trying to unhook myself from this idea that unless you have a brilliant, long, enormously lucrative theatrical run, that your movie somehow failed. And I don't believe that.