JON WATTS

What I love about movies is, no matter how many people are involved or how complicated the process is, at the end of the day, it's just what's inside of that frame. It's going to be people sitting in a movie theater watching one shot at a time. And that's my focus.

I think the danger in trying to set too many things up or do too much world-building in a movie so soon is you forget to actually make a movie.

It's such an amazing team working with both Marvel and Sony, and I have the support of just the very best technicians in the world.

I've always pre-vized my movies, just on my own. Even when it was, like, zero-budget things, I used this programme to do storyboards because I can't draw that well.

I love the movies. Everyone always says the same thing about the shared cultural experience, seeing things on the big screen, the church of the cinema... But on top of all that, as a filmmaker, I love having people be trapped in a movie theater, forcing them to watch what I made.

There's this great panel - I forget what the actual comic is - of Spider-Man in the rain holding an umbrella and eating some Chinese takeout. It's like, that's the essence of 'Spider-Man.'

I've always been a very collaborative person, and I think 'Cop Car' and all the people I worked with who made it possible is a good example of that.

'Cop Car' was made with all of my friends. I wrote it with my best friend.

To me, the best comedies get a little dark, and the best thrillers are a little bit funny. So I'm not exactly sure where I draw the line between the two.

'The Onion' is an amazing place to work because it's a bunch of really smart, collaborative writers who aren't afraid to try crazy things.

I love 'River's Edge.'

I liked writing with my friends and making our own little stories. Making a movie like 'Spider-Man' never even crossed my mind.

When we were kids, we would just go walking: just walk in a direction and hope that you were gonna find a crashed alien spaceship or buried pirate's treasure or something like that. You never did. You'd find, like, a coyote skeleton, something like that. That was the most exciting thing you'd ever find.

If Spider-Man is your ground level superhero, I wanted to come up with a ground-level villain. I wanted to figure out if I could turn a regular guy into a super-villain.

When you're getting to do what you want to do, you just assume you're going to hit a point where someone is like, 'No, you can't do that.' Strangely, that never happened.

By having Spider-Man exist in the same universe as the Guardians of the Galaxy... C'mon, that opens up so many possibilities!

'Welcome to the Dollhouse' is great. Even though it's about a girl in middle school, to me, that feels like the most honest reflection of what being a kid around that age feels like.

If you think about it, now that Spider-Man is in the Marvel universe, that means that Peter Parker was probably, like, eight years old when he saw Tony on TV telling the world he's Iron Man. And when you start thinking about it as a whole world like that, it gets really fascinating.

I didn't even think anyone would want to make 'Cop Car,' and then I didn't think anyone would want to distribute 'Cop Car,' and then I didn't think anyone would want to see 'Cop Car.'

I wouldn't say that I was a Spider-Man super fan.

Sundance is like a genre.

That's why people love Spider-Man: he's the most grounded, relatable of superheroes.

I think every kid is a 'Spider-Man' fan at some point.

Every film you see in film school takes on a heightened importance in your life.

Talking to someone you have a crush on is as scary as fighting a super-villain.