Drew Goddard quotes:

Like everyone else, I love 'Born Again:' that was a seminal work for me. Everything Frank Miller did on 'Daredevil' is like the Bible.

Every project is different. Adapting 'Robopocalypse' would be totally different than adapting, say, 'Hunger Games.' Each project has its own life and its own identity. You get into trouble when you think there's one single way to approach everything. Each project, there's a different way to attack it.

It was a lot of 'Dungeons and Dragons' all through my teens.

If I had to pick one scary movie, I'd go with John Carpenter's 'The Thing.' That's probably number one.

There's just something wonderful about getting a small group of people together in an isolated location, and there's something about cabins themselves that imply both horror and fun. When you go to a cabin, you're usually going to have a good time.

You start to fall in love with characters as you work with them, and anytime that you care about your characters and you realize that you're gonna have to kill them, that fear creeps in. It's sad. It's scary, and it's also sad. Because you like these people.

With horror movies, a bigger budget is actually your enemy. You want to feel the rough edges, the handmade quality to good horror films. Its a genre that benefits from not having everything at your disposal.

If you can relate to what the character's going through, the story can be as ridiculous as possible, and people will relate to it. You can be fearless in your storytelling if you're vigilant about protecting your characters.

It's not like vampires are inherently bad. It's just people need to make better vampire movies.

Some of our best episodes of 'Buffy' were written over a weekend. You can really get in touch with your creative spirit when you're at your most desperate.

I think so much of the horror film is about our primal instincts, and our primal instincts are not just towards violence. It's also towards sex. I feel like horror movies, as much as they're about violence, they're also about sex. It's about our instincts, so in that regard, it's crucial that you honor both of those things.

That's the thing about Lionsgate. They are fearless. No other studio would have made 'Hunger Games' the way they did. They're being fearless in the way they make decisions, and it's paying off for them.

I think that there's good movies and there's bad movies, and sometimes the bad movies spoil it for the rest of us, and we focus on them, but in the long run, all that matters are the good movies. Those are the ones that we will remember.

As a filmmaker, I wish we didn't have to do trailers at all, quite honestly. I wish we didn't have to do posters. I wish didn't have to give anything away. I wish people could just come in the movie blind. But as an audience member, I respect that you have to tell an audience that this is worth your time.

If you worry too much about anything, you end up making bad movies.

This is what I do for fun - brainstorm about monsters!

As a viewer, I never want any movie ruined for me, no matter what the genre is.

I understand why offices need to have office parties. I understand why offices need to have betting pools. No matter what the job, you need things to foster camaraderie and let off steam.

I think the thing I took most from game playing was just getting in the characters head. I took it really seriously. There's something about creating your character.

I think audiences crave something new. I don't think audiences want the same old thing, no matter how much conventional Hollywood tells you that.

My favorite movies are the ones that are different the second time, or where you're constantly discovering new things. It's not just genre movies, either, and it's not just about twists. I saw 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' four times in the theater before I realized it's a love story. I love that.

I think 'The Thing' is so good because it's not just a scary movie. It's also social commentary, which works on multiple levels, which is something I really respond to.

I can always tell when a filmmaker doesn't care about his or her characters; they just care about setting them up to kill them off.

The horror genre gets you in touch with our primal instincts as a people more than any other genre I can think of. It gives you this chance to sort of reflect on who we are and look at the sort of uglier side that we don't always look at, and have fun with that very thing.

I love TV. I've been lucky that I get to do both, and both have things I love about them, features and TV. I hope I get to do both for the rest of my career.

I've been lucky between 'Buffy,' 'Angel,' 'Alias,' and then 'Lost.' The thing they all have in common is that they were all fearless. They were not afraid to be different and try something different. Even if you didn't know that it was going to work, just try to do something new and fresh.

If I had all the filmmakers that traumatized me when I was a little kid in this room, all I would say is, 'Thank you,' because they've made me who I am. As much as I say 'trauma,' it all comes from a place of love. The fact that I am feeling emotions at all based on a work is a wonderful thing, so I'm happy to be a part of that discussion.

I tend to fall more into the fun horror genre than the traumatic horror genre. I love the films where you're laughing as much as screaming, but that doesn't mean I don't like the other ones.

I love going to horror movies - especially when they are fun. I think that they get you in touch with sort of these primal instincts that we all have in the relative safety of the theater.

When Carpenter was shooting 'Vampires' in New Mexico when I was living there, I desperately tried to get a job working on that film, and I couldn't. So my first job as a PA was on a CBS movie of the week that was shooting next door, and whenever I could, I would sneak over so I could watch.

The more work you put in on your outline and getting the skeleton of your story right, the easier the process is later.

I just don't want to make the same old movies. I'm not interested in it. Directing's hard. It takes up a lot of your life, and I'm not that interested in making the same old film.

I grew up in Los Alamos, New Mexico, which is my hometown. In Los Alamos is, for people who don't know, a nuclear lab that built the atomic bomb. The only reason the town exists is to make nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction, and that's still happening there.

The greatest villain of all time is The Joker - he always has been, and I don't know anyone who's not going to have Heath Ledger's performance burnt into their brains for the rest of their lives.

The movies I respond to are by guys like the Coen brothers and Edgar Wright, where it's hard to fit them into any one box.

We've always idealized youth and then destroyed youth. That has happened since the beginning of time, and I'm fascinated by why we do that.

Filmmaking is incredible introspective. It forces you to sort of examine yourself in new ways.

Clearly, the works of John Carpenter and Sam Raimi are front and center here. Argento is definitely there. But even stuff like the 'Friday the 13th' movies had quite an influence on me growing up.

The logistics of blood is something that I didn't even understood as a first-time director. Not just actors and make-up, but once a set gets bloody, you don't un-blood it. Once something gets bloody, you either rebuild the set, or you just don't get the shot.

I feel that in horror movies, especially, if you don't care about the characters, you've lost the audience. No one cares, and it becomes a process of watching people get killed.

In the 'Buffy' room, it was never about a plot twist, ever. It was always about, 'Tell the story, tell the characters, complicate their lives, make things get worse,' but we never worked backwards from the plot, and it was always a great lesson.

I've always said I'm less interested in twists as I am about escalation.

With horror movies, a bigger budget is actually your enemy. You want to feel the rough edges, the handmade quality to good horror films. It's a genre that benefits from not having everything at your disposal.

You don't want to make a movie just to make a movie. You better have a point of view.

I feel the way I always do about sequels. If there's an idea that excites me enough, and it feels like a way to do something new and fresh, then great. But I don't ever want to do a sequel just for the sake of doing a sequel.

There will be a Skype movie soon... someone will crack the code, and it will be great. Then, there'll be 30 Skype movies, and we'll be like, 'Oh, that's boring.'

Certainly, 3rd acts of any movie are hard. It's always hard to have something that will give you the promises from the beginning of the movie. That's true for all movies.

We've always been a band who's taken forever to do things. After writing 'Persona' I think we wrote about four songs in three years!

I just go with what excites me.

Ive found that if you just try to make the film you want, youll find the right audience. If you try to please everyone, youre going to make really boring films.

Theres just something wonderful about getting a small group of people together in an isolated location, and theres something about cabins themselves that imply both horror and fun. When you go to a cabin, youre usually going to have a good time.

I happen to like things that are funny and dramatic at the same time. I don't see the difference.

Everything I've ever worked on has been hard to classify.

Some people like when it rains a lot. Some people like sunshine. The idea that there's one, all encompassing afterlife is strange. It doesn't seem to make sense because we're all such different people.

The most fun characters to work with are characters that are complicated.

I don't like nihilistic characters. As bad guys they're great, but as heroes they don't work.

In a weird way, it's much easier, when I don't have to worry about being a writer, to just worry about the director job, which is really fun.

The truth is, writing and directing are two very different jobs. They're not even remotely the same job. It took me a while, as a director, to understand that.

What I'm looking for in my career, you know? You're looking for those lightning bolts of inspiration where someone says something that sparks an idea or suggests something strange.

That's kind of how I've based my career. I find talented people and beg me to let me work with them.

It's so rare that you meet your idols and they outdo your expectations.

I do feel there's certainly some films where you can feel that the directors don't care about the genre and they don't care about their characters.

All movies are alchemy and time is one of the ingredients that goes into the alchemy. You want the time to be right; you don't want to rush it. You need the right script, the right cast and the right feeling in the culture.

I do love writing but it is a lonely profession. You're lonely and optimistic at the same time.

I try not to get too cute for cute's sake.

I love superheroes and I love weird horror films... I could definitely feel that there was a lack of movies like The Martian being made: smart genre movies that can appeal to adults.