I don't know that you can do an absurdist film and just have everybody embrace it in terms of filling out cards. I just don't think it happens. So you have to prepare an audience.

I thought a great line in the What Just Happened movie said, "We're just the mayonnaise."

No one really has the power, and everybody's trying to get through the day, and everybody's nervous and desperate.

You don't always have to have the ending, but you want to have a satisfactory conclusion.

I don't know that you can do an absurdist film and just have everybody embrace it in terms of filling out cards. I just don't think it happens. So you have to prepare an audience.

Producers - we always think, "Well, producers are very powerful," but producers don't really have the power. It's the appearance they might, but they don't. Even the actors don't. Even the studio heads don't, because they're beholden to this corporation and what the corporation wants. So no one really has the power, and everybody's trying to get through the day, and everybody's nervous and desperate.

If you test Iron Man and that audience doesn't respond well, you can be damn sure that there is something wrong with the movie that you have to address. Because they're expecting a certain amount of action, right? They want a hero. There are certain things that have to be compatible with the way the audience is thinking about it. If you take some other film, like No Country for Old Men, you can end up with all kinds of crazy reactions.