Travis Beacham

“I think the graphic novel form works, in practice, a lot differently from watching a movie. You can put it down and pick it back up whenever you want - something you can't do in a theater.”

“I think my earliest 'Star Wars' memory that I have was from 'Return of the Jedi.' I distinctly remember the scene with the rancor under Jabba's Palace.”

“One of my earliest memories is seeing a 'Godzilla' movie - not just my earliest movie memory, but any kind of memory.”

“Legendary is in the unique position in that they have the resources to take risks, which I think has really benefitted 'Pacific Rim.'”

“If I could pick any story idea or script I had that I wanted everything to go exactly right for, it would probably be 'Pacific Rim.'”

“A lot of screenwriters write certain characters, certain parts, with actors in mind. I don't really tend to do that. I describe them as specifically as I can, but I don't really picture anyone in particular.”

“Once you start putting in political subtext, it does create intellectually challenging science-fiction, but with 'Pacific Rim,' I always thought it would be a shame if kids couldn't go see this movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters because it seemed to have a political point of view.”

“When you have a movie that has big stars in it... like, Will Smith does a great job in 'I Am Legend,' and it's a magnetic performance, but he's always Will Smith. That's not his fault. That's not anyone's fault. He's the center of it, and he's a movie star. But when you see something like 'Jurassic Park,' Sam Neill is Alan Grant.”

“I would definitely, definitely love to do more comic work. I think, creatively, there's something that's differently rewarding about it than the rewards of filmmaking.”

“Usually, you come into it, and there's half a dozen different views or angles on what different people are wanting to see, from the producer to the director to the writers to the actors. I think 'Pacific Rim' has been an example of something that illustrates what you get if everyone is driving towards a common purpose.”

“There's a few things I learned from my experience on 'Hieroglyph.' First of all, I learned that building a world doesn't need to be as expensive as a summer blockbuster. Yeah yeah, newsflash, I know.”

“I grew up in the '80s, and you had these original, big-budget sci-fi adventure things all the time, not based on any source material - you'd have 'Gremlins,' 'Back to the Future,' 'E.T.' 'Ghostbusters,' the list goes on and on. I would love it so much if 'Pacific Rim' was but the first in a new wave of that sort of thing.”

“I think that's where the magic happens, when you get a bunch of people who are really, incredibly talented and good at what they do and very passionate about the project that they're working on and in love with it. I think that's when you get something that's really special.”

“That's part of what I remember about seeing the movies that influenced me: the experience of watching them with a crowd and how they react to something.”