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Success is not something I've wrapped my brain around. If people go to those movies, then yes, that's true, big-time success. If not, it's much ado about nothing.

I know some people see it as this success when the book is finally made into a movie - that marks its success. I don't see it that way.

The film is not a success until it makes money. It's only good when there's a dollar figure attached to the box office.

If the film is a hit then everyone shares the success. If it is going to be a disaster then it might as well be because of me, not because of somebody else.

So many things have to come together to get a creatively successful and financially successful film. Sometimes you'll have a movie that you're very proud of, and you think it transcended all of your expectations, but it doesn't come out at the right time. I have done movies that have never been released. That can be depressing.

Every movie that I've had to really knock down the door for has been an enormous success for me. Not just like a financial success but a real personal success.

It's really hard to make an original movie of any kind that succeeds in the theatrical market place, in the wide release market place.

If a film is not a success, then that's just the way things are. Nothing I can do can make a difference. I have stopped worrying about it.

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.

If you look at the movies that come out, most of them are bad, so it's not as if achieving some level of success means you get offered better roles, because frankly they don't seem to exist.