Honestly, I don't think it's harder to be a producer as a woman. I think it helps me because I don't get bogged down in shows of male dominance that can sometimes get in the way of the best idea prevailing.

Nina Jacobson

Categorized in : Me Best Woman Sometimes

The hiring of Phil Messina, the production designer, was a big decision. He's so gifted, and his ideas were always so smart and rooted in American history and architecture. Nothing feels like it's not us, or couldn't be us, and I think that's very important.

smart ideas thinking

I felt that with each movie, Gary [Ross] adopts a different style. He doesn't have one look that's the Gary Ross look, and I thought that was important.

style different important

The most important part of filmmaking is the collaboration and the ensemble element of it. If you just all focus on the task and the work and try and make the best film that you can then people will come.

focus trying people

The "If you build it, they will come" approach to filmmaking has... by Nina Jacobson

The "If you build it, they will come" approach to filmmaking has always been helpful to me.

filmmaking helpful approach

There is a young fella who works for me, named Brian Unkeless, who's very smart. We're a very small company that has been Brian and me and two assistants, although we're growing a little bit now. He read the [The Hunger Games] book and loved it, and told me I should read it. He had been a fan of the Gregor books. So, I read it and couldn't put it down and couldn't stop thinking about it. I really became obsessed with the thought of producing it, and was completely bothered by the idea that anybody but me could produce it.

smart book thinking

I felt that there were so many things that could go wrong, in adapting The Hunger Games , and I had this fierce desire to protect this book that she had written. At that time, I read the second book, in manuscript form, and so I saw where she was going with the series. I was able to convince Suzanne [Collins] to trust me with the books.

games desire book

I am very filmmaker oriented, as a producer. I think the most important thing is that you have to really choose the players carefully.

important player thinking

It was very important to me to choose a director like Gary [Ross], whose instincts come from character, who's a storyteller, and who puts characters first.

important character directors

You are there to support the vision of the people who you choose... by Nina Jacobson

You are there to support the vision of the people who you choose to excute the movie.

support vision people

I love the Hunger Games books. Certainly, the fans are there. They're grown enormously since the beginning. When I first brought the books to Lionsgate, they had sold about 150,000 copies, which is a very good result for a YA book. And to their credit, Lionsgate was very excited and committed to the movie, from the beginning.

fans games book

Only audiences decide what's a franchise. Only audiences decide what's a hit. I have always been mindful of not wanting to be the Miami Heat of movies.

miami-heat heat miami

I was an executive before I was a producer, and I've seen franchise fever grow, over the course of my career. The one thing that people always forget is that it's only a franchise if audiences really want to see more of it. It's up to them. It's really not up to us.

fever careers people

I was focused on The Hunger Games movie with my director, with the studio, and with the cast and crew. We all just focused on making the best possible movie we could, and earning the right to do more.

games earning directors

Suzanne [Collins] was very involved in the development of the script. She wrote the first draft. She was very involved with Billy Ray, when he wrote his draft.

rays scripts development

I've always tried to really focus on The Hunger Games movie, knowing that, yes, these are amazing books and I would feel like a failure, if I didn't get all three of them made.

knowing games book

If the movie [The Hunger Games] were stylized violence that was pretty and fun and cool, which is great when you go see 300 or The Matrix, it would just be out of sync with the fact that they're kids.

games fun kids

We both [with Suzanne Collins ] felt strongly that you wouldn't want to age up the characters, no matter the age of the actors playing the roles. They should be playing the age that they are in the [Hunger Games] books. It would let people off the hook, if you said, "Well, instead of 12 to 18, why don't you make them 18 to 25 or 16 to 21?" If you don't stay true to the horror of the fact that they are 12 to 18, you're not doing justice to the book.

games character book

We didn't want to dilute or soften the material because that would really be irresponsible, in its own way. The [Hunger Games] books are very intense and very demanding of the reader, and the movie should be that too.

games want book

We knew that we wanted TheHunger Games to be PG-13 because she wrote the book for readers 12 and up, and we wanted them to be able to see the movie. It's a movie that is meant to be relevant to young people, and not exclude them, in any way.

games book people

Being able to just stick to our instincts and honor the [Hunger Games] books and find a way to stay the course of trying to make the best possible decisions that you would make creatively on any movie, without having your head turned too much by all of the interest, has been a great challenge. It's the best challenge you could ask for, but that was a big challenge.

decision games book