“It's a difficult line to toe. You can't end up in the red, but don't want to be too far in the black and lose your freedom.”
Kojima argues that a creator also cannot afford to be too successful: ideally the work should do fairly well, because if you become too successful certain types of people begin to approach you and you end up in a difficult position. He summarized this as a difficult line to toe: you cannot finish in the red, but you also do not want to be so far in the black that you lose your freedom, and he added that this is especially hard if you do well in Hollywood.
“And you can't be too successful either. […] You just want for your work to do fairly well. If you're too successful, you'll start to be approached by certain types of people and you'll find yourself in a tough place. […] You can't end up in the red, but don't want to be too far in the black and lose your freedom. It's especially hard if you do well in Hollywood.”