The scripts for Marco Polo are absolutely, positively fantastic. The challenge of making that show in China has proved to be as formidable as we feared. It's not like making a movie in China where, once you load up and you leave, you're gone. We have to be able to come back and capture something that's going to feel like a major feature film, on a television budget, and do it, hopefully season after season, so we are taking more time than the producers thought.

Dane Cook is one of the most exciting comedy stars to emerge on the scene in many years, and his ability to connect with audiences is truly remarkable. HBO will be able to give this gifted performer the broadest, most unrestricted showcase for his talent, and we're delighted to welcome him to the network.

The expensive ones are for Starz. No. We decided, as part of our Encore strategy, to broaden and strengthen and help focus the Encore plexus by adding original programming.

In the mini-series area, we are going to have a regular year-round, weekly presence on Encore of classic mini-series and a new mini-series that we are bringing. For the time being, I think the home of mini-series will be on Encore.

I think television is a unique form, in terms of storytelling. Having source material for these really dense, complicated, serialized dramas is a great way of world-building.

Movie people think things are movies, and authors think things should be movies because, up until recently, movies have been the jewel in the crown. But, that seems to be changing.

How do you get the protagonists and antagonists together, in the same space, without somebody having to die? So, we ended up having to tell two distinct stories, which is never the ultimate way to create a great serialized drama. So then, of course, we had the tragedy with Andy [Whitfield], which made everything very difficult and pushed back.