[On the racial backlash about Hunger Games casting]: "People should have ignored the five racist idiots.

I'm very superstitious. I come from a family that's big on not painting the nursery until the baby is home.

[On the racial backlash about Hunger Games casting]: "People should have ignored the five racist idiots.

Nobody roots for people who presume success. You have to earn success, and success is earned by making a movie that audiences like and want to see more of.

There is a young fella who works for me, named Brian Unkeless, who's very smart. We're a very small company that has been Brian and me and two assistants, although we're growing a little bit now. He read the [The Hunger Games] book and loved it, and told me I should read it. He had been a fan of the Gregor books. So, I read it and couldn't put it down and couldn't stop thinking about it. I really became obsessed with the thought of producing it, and was completely bothered by the idea that anybody but me could produce it.

Suzanne [Collins] was very involved in the development of the script. She wrote the first draft. She was very involved with Billy Ray, when he wrote his draft.

We both [with Suzanne Collins ] felt strongly that you wouldn't want to age up the characters, no matter the age of the actors playing the roles. They should be playing the age that they are in the [Hunger Games] books. It would let people off the hook, if you said, "Well, instead of 12 to 18, why don't you make them 18 to 25 or 16 to 21?" If you don't stay true to the horror of the fact that they are 12 to 18, you're not doing justice to the book.