It's astonishing how many people who direct action don't know how to tell a story.

Comic book characters are characters who wear costumes. They're not necessarily different than other characters. The trend I think that you're seeing are comic book movies, at least the ones that Marvel makes, don't have comic book stories. They have dramatic human stories.

The top stars like Angelina, Cameron (Diaz), Sandra Bullock and probably now Jennifer Lawrence probably gets paid the same as their male counterparts. The problem is the averages. Because there are not enough parts for women to star in and get paid. So when you look at the total amount women make as compared to men it's paltry.

It's a lot to do with the Marvel ecosystem. It's different from the traditional studio system. Because it is, for how absurdly, incredibly successful they are, it is a family. It is a loving family. It is a group of people who only care about making things good. They don't choose directors who don't want to work with them in the way that they work. And the directors that they choose are better for having done it. Every director who comes out of that system are one kind when they come in, another when they come out. And they usually come back for more. They usually make more than one.

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.

Because all the movies that we tell ourselves we can't make - ballets, westerns, dramas, everything that are the hardest things to make - those are the movies that are not only winning awards which is fantastic, but also those movies that are commercial. We won't see a fascinating season like this for a while.

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.