The film had a tremendous impact. Thirty years later, it’s still talked about like it’s just been released. I will always treasure my memories on that project,”

I didn't imagine that 30 years later, there'd be this enthusiasm and excitement about it. This celebration, I didn't see that coming at all. Back to the Future came out, and there was a two-year lapse, and we did II and III together. We were just making another movie and hoping it gets past opening night. But the kids who saw this film, they've grown up and had kids, who have grown up and had kids. It's exponential, it just keeps spreading out more and more. But the film has aged well. I saw it last night. It seems very contemporary.

It’s funny, it’s amazing how many people go see a movie and have not seen anything about it. People like you and I go to the movies and we’re worried that we’ve seen every scene through all the commercials, and yet half the audience, a lot of people make their decision what movie to see while they’re standing in line. So, I really don’t know. Audiences are getting very specific and segmented, but to me, the dream is still the movie that’s for everyone and it’s harder to reach everyone nowadays.

I never thought of it (becoming a classic). It never occurred to me. I was going to be happy if it had a good, strong run, if it was a popular film. I thought it would run its course and that would be that. But it just kept rolling along and it keeps rolling along, and generation after generation keeps showing up to see it. It’s a wonderful thing to be a part of something that means so much to so many people and that just keeps thriving.

It was a priority for us that we make the film something that could work for audiences as a piece of filmmaking, as a piece of cinema, as a piece of entertainment.

And for two years, we had this sign up saying we will finish this movie and we changed it to 'did' finish the movie.

I want to make a movie that has enough impact that it's going to do what it needs to do. But I don't want to make a film that serial killers masturbate to.

I'm a little surprised that commercial success has arrived. I used to think that it was hopeless, that it would never happen.

If showing movies in theaters wasn't Hollywood's original business model, it would seem a pretty niche idea. Pay to watch a movie at a set time in a big room with a bunch of other people? Someone proposing this would have a hard time getting studios to take the idea seriously.

The public has lost the habit of movie-going because the cinema no longer possesses the charm, the hypnotic charisma, the authority it once commanded. The image it once held for us all — that of a dream we dreamt with our eyes open — has disappeared. Is it still possible that one thousand people might group together in the dark and experience the dream that a single individual has directed?