If I know what my finale is when I'm writing a screenplay, then I don't always have to chart out every scene before that. I can adequately find my way. I'm experienced enough to do that.

After I script the movie, I have to storyboard it out, I have to budget it, and I have to understand if I can afford all those visual effects or not.

While you're making the film and working with the actors, if you want to have a little room to breathe and experiment and play, it grows, and you want that to happen. It's not enough to just shoot the script. You've gotta come up with new inspiration, as you shoot it. There's gotta be room for that and time for that, so it grows.

There are trappings of science fiction which I kind of embrace, but there are also cliches which I run from.

I don't want to have so much humor [in films] that it undermines the jeopardy, but enough to sometime relieve tension.

Had we had all the money in the world to spend and we were doing another studio movie, we probably would have jumped quickly into the Necromonger universe and done an Orpheus Descending movie there. We didn't have that kind of resource. So, we said, this time, "If not that, this time, then what is it? What does this new movie look like?" Quickly, just in talking about it very simply with Vin [Diesel] in his kitchen, we decided on a survival, left-for-dead story, where Riddick could, as a character, reclaim the animal side.

If I know what my finale is when I'm writing a screenplay, then I don't always have to chart out every scene before that. I can adequately find my way. I'm experienced enough to do that.