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If I'm in the bookstore, and I see a 700-page novel, my first thought is, 'Ooh, how could you cut this down to size and make a movie out of it?'

Some people say that they read the first 20 pages, and then decide if they want to do the film or not. But, I have to read the entire thing 'cause anything can change in a script.

If you get a book which is 600 pages, you have to reduce it to a script of 100 pages. In two hours of film, you cannot possibly include all the characters.

It's hard enough condensing 500 pages into a movie, and it would have been impossible to condense 800.

Most writers have no idea how to make a film. It's a totally different skill set. Nor is it just to translate exactly what's on the page directly on to the screen - because that would be terrible. It would be five hours long, and the structure would be a mess. But the writers know the characters and the story.

I'm used to adapting my novels for feature film - it can be challenging to cut and compress three or four hundred pages into two hours of dramatic action.

The thing is, you never know with any movie how it's going to turn out. It's always a mystery - you'll do pages and pages of scenes that will never make it onto the screen.

The key thing is that you start every film from sort of a blank page, almost like you discover it like a child discovers a new world.

A lot of feature films do two pages a day.

In film, you have the luxury of accomplishing what you need in 24 frames every second. Comics, you only have five or six panels a page to do that.