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.

Being branded to some subset of your fans is important when it comes to creating films and characters they're not familiar with. It's enormously difficult to market to a global audience, and it's becoming more difficult. A brand matters to parents, whereas kids are largely driven by their urgent reaction to the product. In the future, where there are going to be choices that have to be made by parents because it will be prohibitively expensive to access everything, those will be driven partially by brand.

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.

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.

Absolutely, you rise and fall based on your creative team. I have continuity across different films that I've done. I was even fortunate enough to reach back and include people that had worked on Horton with me, as well.

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.

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