Drew Daywalt

I want to be Willy Wonka. He has a really fun spirited side but also a dark, justice-giver side.

I tend to look way back for my inspiration: H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe.

I didn't want to do 'The Fluffy Puppy Learns to Hold Hands!' or 'Kitty Gets a Box to Play In!' There's a place for that for the little ones - some kids need that stuff. But I'm too dark and sarcastic.

My daughter has seen the transition from struggling screenwriter to successful picture book author, and she's enjoyed it very much because she's a wonderful little kid. And she's always believed in her daddy.

I never try to sit down with a moral because kids smell that and run.

I just want to be entertained. The stories that have aged the best are the ones where the wolf eats grandma, or the woman is going to bake children in an oven, or the bear is going to eat the girl for eating the porridge. There are lessons in there, but they're deeply engrained and hidden.

In Hollywood it's really tough to change genres; you have to re-prove yourself.

Around 2008 when the writers' strike happened, all my stuff was getting stuck in development, and I thought, 'I'm going to try my hand at horror because I always loved it as a kid.'

There are too many remakes, too many reimaginings. Nothing new, and that's always a bad sign. They remade 'Frankenstein' 26 times between 1930 and 1970, so it's not a new phenomenon.