I've carried on, in that same tradition, with my kids. Aside from just his brilliance, in my estimation, I think he had one of the great imaginations of the 20th century. One of the reasons why the tradition carries on, all these years later, is because, as a parent, those are the books that you go to and pull off the shelf because they never stop delighting you.

We have a process that continually looks back to him for guidance, but it also combines that with a tremendous amount of discovery and invention, as well, because of the demands of the medium and the opportunities of the medium.

There are countless times where you're trying to channel somebody who's not there, but that's what you have to do. But Audrey Geisel, who has executive produced this film and Horton, and who works remarkably close with me, is a great source of information. (The Simpsons creator) Matt Groening once told me that one of the most important roles that he fulfills on The Simpsons is being the keeper of the integrity of the original vision.

Everybody has a wicked side, whether they are six or sixty, and yet so often storytelling draws a sharp line between good and evil.

We in Illumination Entertainment tend not to put ideas through a brand funnel. We've collected a group of people who share a certain taste, and that is connected to our aspirations for our brand. We pride ourselves on making character-centric movies. If I had to say what's the most important thing this company does, it's creating characters that stay with the audience long after they leave the theater.

I think that it's important for a film that's in 3D that the filmmakers create the movie from a staging and scene planning standpoint with the dimensional space as one of their storytelling components.

It's not fair to use movies that weren't creatively successful as a reason why something won't work.