It has been almost a year since “Hoodwinked” came out, and while I have done a lot of writing, I have yet to secure my next film as director. That can be a bit rattling if I think about it too much. But I believe your choices define you, especially the things you decide NOT to do. So I have made a conscious choice to say no to a lot of things this past year. And that’s been empowering.

And now… some very cool things are happening. So while I don’t have a lot I can REPORT, there is a lot going on “behind the curtain,” believe me. Progress on anything in this business usually involves meetings, notes on those meetings, meetings on those notes, then scheduling another meeting… in two weeks. So that’s what’s happening for me. Trust me, when I have something to report, it will be worth blogging about.

Trick or Treat! You know you’ve made it when somewhere in the world, a kid wants to be one of your movie’s characters for Halloween. I was delighted to see this pic, sent from “Hoodwinked” superfans Emma and Molly Irvin.

These two are very authentic as Twitchy and Red. You can see that Red (Molly) has the skirt-pants combo, and Twitchy (Emma) has all the accessories, including his camera and hat! You’ll also notice that, even as the picture was being taken, Twitchy could not resist getting at Red’s goody basket. If this is not one of the cutest photos you’ve ever seen, you are a mean, cold person and need to lie down in a field of daisies as soon as possible.

While I am giving props to “Hoodwinked” Halloween costumes, I have to give some retroactive acknowlegement to Mark and Chana Keefer. Here they are as the Wolf and Red.

They should be applauded for authenticity: Wolf has his Lakers jersey, sweatshirt and tape recorder. Red had her basket with an actual family recipe book inside, hidden under a tray of cupcakes! Details, folks! That’s the extra mile. It should also be noted that they dressed as these characters LAST year, before the movie even came out. I think that makes these the first Hoodwinked Halloween costumes ever. Mark was sound designer on the film, so he kind of had the inside scoop.

Happy belated Halloween everyone! And if you want to dress up as any of the characters for Thanksgiving or Christmas, I’m not gonna stop you.

Big news! After playing around the globe, the girl in the hood has finally hit the $100 Million mark. Not bad for an $8 Million indie film. I gotta say, it feels GOOD. Thanks to everyone on the crew who worked on this labor of love… and sweat… and tears. You know who you are.

Here’s a nice quote from Harvey Weinstein in this week’s Wall Street Journal: “The first six months in the new company, I got fascinated with animation and built an infrastructure for that. I didn’t know that right out the box we’d have such a monster hit in “Hoodwinked.” [The film grossed $101 million world-wide.] And now we’re in production with ‘Hoodwinked II’.”

And for a little icing on the cake, we’re #1 in Brazil this month. Boom.