[on writing Mission: Impossible (1996)] Tom Cruise was involved first. He was interested in doing it, and he was producing it. And then Brian De Palma called me and said why don't you take a crack at it. You have to consider who's in it, and then make it work. The essential problem was Tom Cruise was the biggest star on the planet, and [the original TV show] was an ensemble that tilts towards no-one. I'd never viewed the TV show as sacrosanct. We had to acknowledge who our cast was. So I can't remember whose idea it was, either De Palma or Steven Zaillian said let's start by killing the team, lets just get rid of them. Because you had to work out how you get this ensemble piece into a star vehicle. So we killed everybody, and we were feeling very cheeky, and decided we're going to do want we want, we'll kill people, we'll make the good guy the bad guy [refering to character 'Jim Phelbs' (John Voight'], and added in the new recruits. And I think it worked out well.[Jan.2015] Show less «

[on Frank Darabont's rejected screenplay for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)] I've never actually met Frank Darabont, but I hear he's a lovely guy. Just for the record, the Indiana Jones jumping into the fridge bit is in the Darabont script. And I loved it, which is why I pushed it into the movie! I thought it was a great idea![Jan.2015] Show less «

[on his script for Snake Eyes (1998)] It had a different ending, yep. And I'm trying to remember what the original ending was... [Gary Sinise's character] didn't die, Nicolas Cage's character saved him at the end. It's not uncommon to change things. It didn't end up that much different, it's just that they wanted the bad guy to get his comeuppance. So he did.[Jan.2015] Show less «