People always complain that superhero movies end with a big fight scene where they're tearing up a city, and there's a portal opening up, and they have to close it... I wanted to have a climactic scene that subverted those familiar ideas.

In my horror movies, I was always trying to deal with real characters and real character drama played by good actors... Laura Linney, Ethan Hawke, Eric Bana, and Tom Wilkinson, people who don't do horror normally.

For me, there is a basic recognition of horror as the most open doorway where the intersection of philosophical and religious ideas can come tighter.

I always wanted to be a superhero.

I've never been a materialist; I've never been somebody who believes in only what we can see and measure. I continue to be a student of religious philosophy, and I continue to take those ideas very seriously.

If we're not compelled to gain a deeper understanding of good and evil, how can we make the world a better place? How can we find ourselves at the end of our lives and know that our lives were significant? Those things would be impossibilities.