This is a tale that says everything about that question. I went to see a film called Avatar. And I was really excited about it. I thought it was going to go places that film had never gone before. In the first 20-25 minutes I thought, "Wow! This is such a visceral cinematic experience. 3-D's never been this advanced!" And then it turned into Dances with Wolves. I was just sitting there thinking, "Who the f___ thought there was a market for a three-hour-long, heavy-handed message movie about paleface bad, Native American mysticism good, populated by these hideously ugly 9-ft. tall space Smurfs?" I walked out of the theater, and I said to my colleagues, "Wow, that is going to be one of the biggest bombs ever." Um, history didn't bear me out. I may have misjudged the commercial appeal of Avatar. It speaks to the fact that you never know. That very easily could have been a giant flop。

　　One of your book's lessons is that a movie's reputation isn't static. It evolves over time。

　　Look, a lot of times a film has a reputation for a very good reason. I'm not going to try to convince you that Gigli is an amazing film because Gigli isn't an amazing film. But I can point out that it's a really interesting film, that it takes incredible chances, and that there are these indelible moments within it. Christopher Walken has this one scene in the film, and it's just nuts. It has almost nothing to do with the rest of the film. But for four minutes, that film is great, and that film is crazy. And then it goes awry. But I definitely feel that my whole project as an author has been to defend things that are widely maligned. And to defend things that people dismiss out of hand. Nobody needs to defend Citizen Kane or Godfather: Part II. But the Freddy Got Fingereds of the world need passionate, eloquent defenders. And there aren't any of those, so I guess I have to do it in their stead。