Look, if you have a problem with distilling the Battle of Thermopylae down to freedom versus tyranny, you need to read Herodotus because he's the one. It's his fault, not modern culture's fault. He did it.' [Victor Davis Hanson] references a lot of things like that because he feels like the spirit of the book and of the movie ["300"] are very close to the Spartan aesthetic. That's really kind of what he feels."

I heard one time that the Superman glyph is the second or third most recognizable symbol on Earth after the Christian cross.

We can't just go, like, oh that'd be cool then not do it. So it's one of those weird things. You gain all these things on your journey. You get smarter. It's interesting how you are who you are in high school in a lot of ways. When I look at my friends, I feel no different about them than I did when I was in high school. I mean that in a great way. They've taken on a micro scale what they were doing and making it bigger.

One of the things I think is important about 'Watchmen' is that it have resonance within cinematic pop culture as well as superhero culture.

The thing about 'Dark Knight' is its objective is to set Batman into your world, so that you can imagine the moral dilemmas he faces are exactly parallel to moral dilemmas that you would face in this world, today, if you were out there fighting crime dressed like a bat.

Yeah, I mean, I think I'm obsessed with tone in the movies. Tone has always been the main thing that I go after with a movie.

Music has that ability to be a magical thing, and I was like, maybe music is the vehicle that transports us to that other world.