If it's a huge tentpole movie, for instance with a movie like 'Tintin,' a year and a half, almost two years in advance, we were developing a videogame campaign and massive consumer products campaign.

When you're relegated to go from movie to movie, so much of what you're doing is out of your control beyond creating the product.

Mick and Dave, they've been on the movie a year and a half. Before we even started shooting they were on it. Through the dailies, Dave was on the set ... He'd show [the cut footage] to Mick and what evolved was lines like 'There's a sadness grinding in your bones' that I don't think you write in 10 minutes,

We did it a year in advance, and we didn't get any credit for it.

If all you're doing is playing it safe - trying to make the same movie over and over again - that's when the audiences say, 'Oh, this is just a moneymaking machine.' But if it's genuinely in service to the art form, then the franchise concept is being used in a way that's exciting.

Massive step forward