Though such an unrelentingly prolific output suggests an invincible indefatigability, it is a distinctly tired-sounding Joel Silver that ventures a softly-spoken �Hi� when I eventually speak to him just before lunch. I therefore try to liven him up by beginning with a question that he surely would never have heard before, or maybe not�

�So, Joel Silver, what first attracted you to The Reaping?�
�I thought it was a good idea�, I thought it was a fresh idea, taking this movie in the biblical context of the plagues - which I think is one of the original horror stories of all time - and I thought it was a good idea to have them visited on a little town, with the original concept of a miracle debunker (played by Swank) who is not able to debunk these miracles�. When quizzed on the subject, Silver denies any suggestion of a deeper significance to the religious aspect of the film. �It�s a fun idea, there�s no greater position than that�. So it doesn�t reflect any desire to promote his own personal beliefs? �No. It�s just a movie� retorts Silver.

It is evidence of the renown that Silver enjoys that two-time Oscar-winner Hilary Swank offered her services before a script had even been shown her.  Why does he think she was so keen to work with him? �Well, I�d known Hilary for a while, and she�d said she�d wanted to do one of these movies. She approached me, I think after seeing Gothika, and said �I could do one of those - maybe you can find one for me�. So when this script came I sent it to her�.

So is he pleased with the final result? �Yeah, I think it�s great�and I think its going to fare very well, people seem to like it. It�s a very scary movie, and it�s a lot of fun�, skirting round the fact that The Reaping has been almost universally panned by critics worldwide.

 �Fortunately we live at a time now where people make their decisions not so much on the critical response, and that�s the right way it should be�, he says, stoically. �The critical response doesn�t really affect me as long as it doesn�t get in the way of the commercial response, which hasn�t really happened in a long time�.

Does he have equal disregard for critics when the reviews are good? �Well, I made a movie last year that I love, called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which I thought was a great film, and it got a really great critical response, but didn�t get an audience response! So I prefer the audience response � I mean it�s nice to have nice review, but I prefer it to be a hit movie�.

When I mention that Die Hard and Predator are both now widely regarded as classics of their genre, he laughs wryly �believe me, they weren�t regarded as classics when they were released!� He then launches into what seems to be one of his most frequently recounted anecdotes about critical capriciousness. �For one of the Lethal Weapons - I think it was the first one - some reviewer said it was a terrible movie, and that people shouldn�t go. Then when Lethal Two came out, the same reviewer said what a terrible movie Lethal Two was compared to the great movie the first one was�.

�I�m a commercial film-maker, so I like to make movies that people respond to, and my reward is that they make a lot of money. That�s the idea. I make pictures that will reach the largest amount of audiences�.