The most important part of filmmaking is the collaboration and the ensemble element of it. If you just all focus on the task and the work and try and make the best film that you can then people will come.

We knew that we wanted TheHunger Games to be PG-13 because she wrote the book for readers 12 and up, and we wanted them to be able to see the movie. It's a movie that is meant to be relevant to young people, and not exclude them, in any way.

Ultimately, only audiences decide what's a franchise.

Deb Zane, our casting director on the Hunger Games was very sanguine, from the beginning, about just blocking out what everybody else says that they want.

The hiring of Phil Messina, the production designer, was a big decision. He's so gifted, and his ideas were always so smart and rooted in American history and architecture. Nothing feels like it's not us, or couldn't be us, and I think that's very important.

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.

The most important part of filmmaking is the collaboration and the ensemble element of it. If you just all focus on the task and the work and try and make the best film that you can then people will come.