"I love Zhang Yimou. I worked with him briefly when I was prepping a show for Legendary Films – I didn’t stay on that show, the timing didn’t work out, but I got to work several months with Zhang Yimou which was great. His use of colors, that’s what we used in John Wick. My cinematographer Dan Laustsen and I were very influenced by the artistic way he used color, because Zhang Yimou is also a photographer and amazing artist. It’s funny; when asked what my influences in action are, I usually choose them based not on the actual action choreography. It’s the vibe, the thematics of the action. Or how it’s shot and composed. That’s very important to me."

"Okay the next one, and it’s a big one, is The Goonies. I think it’s almost self-explanatory. I remember seeing The Goonies as a kid and I think it’s that sense of — it is almost like a Scooby-Doo-esque adventure become real, and I think that’s what made it so appealing to me as a kid. It wasn’t that it was raucous and loud, it was that these kids were incredibly relatable. They were real kids. They came in all shapes and sizes, they were incredibly flawed, and very funny. They were rude, they bickered; they just felt so real, and they were a lot of fun because of that. So yeah, The Goonies — huge influence."

"It’s dramatically different [from The Godfather] in terms of this town and the world of it. It’s a good movie, tremendously. I’m a writer, so obviously I enjoy the content because it’s about writer things and writer dramas and writer people. It’s just one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. I can watch that movie over and over again. Robert Downey Jr. gives one of his best performances ever. And very funny. And I love Michael Douglas in it; he’s great. But it also has this wonderful capacity for pathos in this very earned way. It doesn’t feel kitsch. It feels really earned and honest, so it can play those lines really well."

"I’m going to put The Apartment on there. Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon. You know, Billy Wilder is just one of my favorite filmmakers ever. That movie is one that has grown with me. That’s another movie that I definitely saw as a child and have felt differently about as I’ve gotten older. Its really about two lonely people and it’s so sweet and so funny, and the score — I think it’s the Charles Williams orchestra that does the score on that. I’m not going to get that right, but the score is just so, so beautiful. I feel like I can just hear the refrain of that and cry. I think it’s really a perfect movie."