Richard Donner made great movies. Seminal movies. The Academy, though, and we have to be careful here, should recognize popular films. Popular films are what make it all work. There was a time when popular movies were commercial movies, and they were good movies, and they had to be good movies. There was no segregation between good independent films and popular movies.

Marvel has this tradition, and I think that Sony has this tradition too, of hiring directors for Spider-Man who are dramatic directors. That are directors who are interested in human beings, in characters, in drama, and who are really good with actors. That kind of feels like a Spider-Man director to me. And because Spider-Man is always as big as the films that are being made at Marvel, it always is character and story. You can never take that out.

It has been said that I make chick flicks. This is not a compliment.

For a woman to direct a movie in Hollywood, she has to go through so many layers of rejection by the powers that be - I suppose including myself - that it is harder to get to that point. So you can't just create something. And I think there is a whole unconscious mountain.

I always wanted to make movies no matter what. It's true. No matter how I was getting to do it, that's what I wanted to do.

Richard Donner made great movies. Seminal movies. The Academy, though, and we have to be careful here, should recognize popular films. Popular films are what make it all work. There was a time when popular movies were commercial movies, and they were good movies, and they had to be good movies. There was no segregation between good independent films and popular movies.

Dawn Steel was the person who told me I could never wear shoes like this! She and Nora Ephron told me 'you can't wear those crappy shoes, nobody would ever take you seriously'. I've been wearing them ever since then!