Nina Jacobson Quotes

When doing family entertainment, you don't actually worry about kids. You know what you can't do. But in terms of sensibility and sophistication and wit and ambition, aim for your own taste level, and kids will - if they're interested in the subject matter - be glad that you did.

When you're younger and you see something that really speaks to you, it's indelible in a way that's not the same as when you're an adult. So I'll always love reading books and making movies that resonate with young people.

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.

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.

In the evolution of the [The Hunger Games] movie, Gary [Ross] and I talked a lot about tonal bandwidth and making sure that the look and feel and style and choices of the movie stayed within a certain consistent bandwidth.

It's an exciting time, when you can make your movie on a cellphone. If it's good, it WILL get noticed.

As a producer, you can't break up w/your own project. It's like sleeping with someone that you don't like ... Forever.

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

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.

Little decisions were made, every day. In this movie [The Hunger Games], we really focused on Cinna and we didn't get time to focus on the other stylist.

When I love a book, I really love a book. You don't get that very often.

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.

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.

Suzanna Collins was very supportive, but we very much wanted her blessing on casting. In production, she visited us once, but she really was not involved in the production process. She's seen the Hunger Games movie twice, in the post-production process, once as an early cut and then once when it was finished.

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.

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.

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

Getting movies developed doesn't do me any good as a producer. It only does me good to get movies made.

There are still so few female directors. There are far fewer writers than we'd like to see.

[On the racial backlash about Hunger Games casting]: People should have ignored the five racist idiots.

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.

Deb Zane, our casting director on the Hunger Games was very sanguine, from the beginning, about just blocking out what everybody else says that they want.

I know many filmmakers, and shooting in IMAX is challenging. Filmmakers love the vividness and power of those big images.

My daughter and I have this thing we call a PMA: 'perfect moment alert.' I try to really notice when we're having a PMA.

I can't imagine Hunger Games, even with its very popular books, being nearly a success that it's been without Jen Lawrence being the perfect person to play that role - a very modern celebrity, a very down-to-earth, accessible, celebrity.

It's definitely a tough blow to your morale to get fired.

I never had to put myself in somebody else's shoes.

I'm an ardent fan. All I really had to do was put myself in my own shoes.

I've been fortunate enough to match up the material I'm producing with the right buyer, the company that will make it and that wants it, and that isn't saying yes to be nice, but is saying yes because they want and need that movie and it's going to be important on their slate.

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.

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.

I am happy to keep working on books because I'm always reading, and I'm always trying to fall in love.

[On The Hunger Games success]: It hit on the zeitgeist of the disparity b/w the haves and have nots.

The most powerful decision-making part of the audience is women. Boys have a lot of impact on the industry, but it's often women who impact what stories get made.

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.

You're not doing the scene exactly the way it is in the book [The Hunger Games], but the intention of the scene is there.

Ultimately, only audiences decide what's a franchise.

When you read a book, you create that tonal bandwidth. You set a tone for yourself, as you're reading it, in which everything exists within the world of your imagination.

Ultimately, I am very filmmaker oriented, as a producer.

When you read a book [The Hunger Games], you create that tonal bandwidth. You set a tone for yourself, as you're reading it, in which everything exists within the world of your imagination. In the book, it's great when she can push a button and food comes up, as per your order.

Nobody roots for people who presume success. You have to earn success, and success is earned by making a movie that audiences like and want to see more of.