I think that one of the greatest perspectives that I have, from being a buyer for my whole career until I became a producer, is that I have a pretty good understanding of the buyers mentality.

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.

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.

Only audiences decide what's a franchise. Only audiences decide what's a hit. I have always been mindful of not wanting to be the Miami Heat of movies.

In the evolution of the [The Hunger Games] movie, Gary [Ross] and I talked a lot about tonal bandwidth and making sure that the look and feel and style and choices of the movie stayed within a certain consistent bandwidth.

I was an executive before I was a producer, and I've seen franchise fever grow, over the course of my career. The one thing that people always forget is that it's only a franchise if audiences really want to see more of it. It's up to them. It's really not up to us.

I can't imagine Hunger Games, even with its very popular books, being nearly a success that it's been without Jen Lawrence being the perfect person to play that role - a very modern celebrity, a very down-to-earth, accessible, celebrity.