On Combining The Genres Of "Western" And "Sci-Fi":
"We really play the "western" down the middle. I think a lot of people get scared because, even when done right, westerns are not lucrative films. Sci-fi has inherited most of the mythology of the western. And if you're going to do a mashup of genres, I think you have to play the genre down the middle. You can't go for the weirdo sci-fi/western where you ruin the western. I think when they try to mash it up sometimes they don't play it straight enough on the western side. And by the same token you have to play it straight on the alien side, and there are a lot of choices of what to do with the alien movie."
On Having Steven Spielberg As Executive Producer:
"I could actually turn to the guy and say, "How did you shoot this? How did you do it when you only had practical rigs, what did you do?" He knows about CG, and I'm like, "No, I don't want to talk to you about the CG. I want to talk to you about pre-CG. How did you get that effect in Close Encounters?" Then he's like, "Well, you have better rigs now, but this is what we tried to do."
On Replacing Robert Downey Jr. With Daniel Craig:
"Downey was already off it because of the success of Sherlock, and he was getting ready to do Sherlock 2, which he is very creatively involved with and his wife produced. So as I came on there was a little bit of a tongue-and-cheek quality to the property. I felt that it should be very "straight-ahead," not a "fast-talking gun fighter." As a matter of fact, there was something about the idea of Daniel Craig that was very evocative to me as I looked at him, even though you'd never think of him as a cowboy, as a Steve McQueen in The Magnificent Seven. And the movie I keep watching is Layer Cake, and I watched it a few times before we hired him."
On Casting Harrison Ford:
"Harrison's a guy that-- It was not like the script was sent to him in official capacity with an offer. It just so happened that Harrison was looking to do something like this and had always wanted to do a western. He seemed to like my take on this as a filmmaker. I presented him with all the artwork and showed him the stuff. Of course what Harrison is to me is I think what my parent's generation was with John Wayne. The persona is as big as the roles. And it's very interesting sitting down with Harrison and saying, "Look, I grew up watching you."
On How Much Work There's Left To Do On The Movie:
"I think we're about a month, five weeks in? So we have to finish shooting in the desert, and then we come back and work with Universal on the lot for interiors. We're about a third of the way through I'd say."