Top 20 Movies Ruined By Their Own Studios
Pesky studios won't let us have nice things! For this list, we’ll be looking at the most egregious examples of films being affected or outright wrecked by executive meddling.
Transcript
00:00 Why are you acting this way?
00:02 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top 20 movies ruined by studio interference.
00:09 You can't fix this.
00:11 Nobody can.
00:15 For this list, we'll be looking at the most egregious examples of films being affected or outright wrecked by executive meddling.
00:21 Which of these movies do you want to see a director's cut of? Let us know in the comments below.
00:26 Number 20, Superman II.
00:29 It's a bird! It's a plane! It's... a behind-the-scenes train wreck.
00:33 There were producer clashes, salary disputes, financing issues, you name it, Superman II probably suffered from it.
00:40 What more do you want? I can see the greed written on your face.
00:44 Then, after 75% of Superman II had been shot, director Richard Donner's tense relationship with the film's producers reached a boiling point.
00:52 Suddenly, Donner was out, a new director was in, and the entire production was split in two over how to feel about it.
00:58 That included Christopher Reeve himself, who almost didn't return as Clark Kent at all.
01:02 You are Superman, aren't you?
01:04 Lois, look, we've been through these hallucinations of yours before.
01:08 Given the intense turmoil, it's a credit to Superman's enduring appeal that the theatrical cut isn't a total disaster.
01:14 Still, when given the choice, we'll take the Richard Donner cut.
01:18 Number 19, Cursed.
01:20 If this movie is any indication, silver bullets don't kill werewolves.
01:24 Studio-mandated reshoots do.
01:26 See, Wes Craven marched into the 2000s as one of the most influential horror directors of all time.
01:32 Throw in a prolific writer and some big-name stars, and Cursed seemed poised to be the genre's next mega-hit.
01:37 Unfortunately, audiences never got to see that version.
01:41 Dissatisfied with the dailies from set, higher-ups at the production company decided to completely rework the film.
01:46 Oh, you are asking for it, Avril Prombie.
01:48 Oh, come on. Oh, you're really becoming transparent.
01:50 I'm gonna have a little identity intervention, okay?
01:52 In the shuffle, Cursed lost its intended R rating and much of its original vision.
01:57 This included firing makeup legend Rick Baker and replacing the werewolves with CGI.
02:02 Only 12 minutes of the first shoot made the theatrical cut,
02:05 and it wasn't enough to save the flick from becoming a bonafide box office bomb.
02:09 Monster.
02:11 Join the club.
02:12 Number 18, All the Pretty Horses.
02:15 Book-to-movie adaptations are one of the few cases in Hollywood where you know what you're getting into.
02:20 But when director Billy Bob Thornton turned in a three-hour-plus epic faithfully adapting the novel's story,
02:25 Columbia Pictures had major buyer's remorse.
02:27 So much so that they pawned off part of the film's distribution to their production partner.
02:32 What the hell are you doing?
02:36 There, All the Pretty Horses had an hour cut from its runtime and was reinterpreted as a generic teen romance.
02:42 The new edit failed to impress anyone, least of all audiences.
02:46 The movie was a textbook flop, and at this point, not even the rumored director's cut can save its tarnished legacy.
02:52 Mister, I got trouble you never even heard of.
02:54 Number 17, The Cloverfield Paradox.
02:57 Don't let the name fool you. This isn't really a Cloverfield movie at all.
03:01 The script was originally developed as a standalone sci-fi thriller called God Particle.
03:05 But, salivating at the idea of a franchise, the producers slapped the Cloverfield name on it and called it a day.
03:12 I don't know. I don't know what to believe anymore.
03:15 The film's own writer didn't learn of the connection until well into production, necessitating a series of last-minute rewrites.
03:21 And it shows.
03:23 The Cloverfield Paradox is a janky, confused mess that's practically bursting at the seams of its disparate parts.
03:29 One thing is clear, the Overlook did it.
03:31 It's a shame since, had they just left Good Enough alone, God Particle could have started its own franchise instead of killing this one.
03:37 Number 16, I Am Legend.
03:40 Richard Matheson's iconic sci-fi novel ends with one hell of a plot twist.
03:45 The monsters Neville's been fighting are sentient.
03:47 By doing experiments on their friends, he's been the real villain all along.
03:51 It's a finale meant to keep you thinking.
03:53 And originally, the film adaptation did that idea justice.
03:56 But, when it tested poorly with early audiences, the studio completely reshot the climax.
04:01 And in the process, missed the entire point of the story.
04:05 Nothing happened the way it was supposed to happen.
04:07 Nothing worked the way it was supposed to work.
04:09 The theatrical version of the I Am Legend movie concludes with Will Smith's Neville heroically sacrificing himself to stop the big bad monsters.
04:16 No twist, no intrigue.
04:18 Suffice it to say, this is not a legend worth retelling.
04:22 We are his legacy.
04:24 This is his legend.
04:28 Number 15, Suicide Squad.
04:30 The biggest supervillain here is whoever decided to edit this movie.
04:34 Then again, that's just scratching the surface of how Warner Brothers botched Suicide Squad.
04:38 What the hell's wrong with you people?
04:40 We're bad guys. It's what we do.
04:44 The film had already wrapped when the distributor suddenly got cold feet about its tone.
04:48 That note became a full-on war of creative visions.
04:51 And not even costly reshoots could get everyone on the same page.
04:54 Everything about the movie was changing.
04:56 Well, everything except the release date.
04:58 Hey, well, don't they say about the crazy ones?
05:02 The movie was rushed out to the door.
05:04 And surprising no one, it played more like a frenetic music video than a coherent story.
05:08 Let's just say that, critically speaking, Suicide Squad lived up to its name in all the wrong ways.
05:14 Number 14, Exorcist The Beginning.
05:17 From idea to reality, it took roughly six years for this prequel to be made.
05:21 But it was only at the very end that Morgan Creek Productions decided they didn't like Exorcist The Beginning anymore.
05:27 Instead of a methodical thriller, they wanted a gory fright fest.
05:31 No, you asked the question. Now you're going to listen to the answer.
05:33 The team re-edited the film and then re-edited it again.
05:36 But the suits still weren't satisfied.
05:38 So, Morgan Creek Productions threw that cut in the garbage and essentially started from scratch.
05:43 As expected, that flip-flopping cost them a whole lot of cash when the movie released to downright toxic critical reception.
05:50 The original cut surfaced a year later to marginally better marks.
05:53 But by then, The Beginning was already at its end.
05:56 No!
05:57 God isn't here today.
05:59 Number 13, X-Men Origins Wolverine.
06:02 There's a bevy of outstanding Wolverine-centric stories both on the page and on the big screen.
06:07 X-Men Origins is not one of them.
06:09 Most of the blame lies on 20th Century Fox's fundamental misunderstanding of what this movie should be.
06:15 You know, I'm not proud about the way things ended between us.
06:18 Conversation's over.
06:20 Director Gavin Hood pushed for a grittier take on the character that acknowledged his post-traumatic stress disorder.
06:25 Fox, on the other hand, insisted upon a lighter tone.
06:28 That's right, a film about a war-seasoned anti-hero with adamantium claws that's also family-friendly.
06:34 You can see why these contradictory tones didn't quite mesh.
06:37 Oh, and don't even get us started on what they did to Deadpool.
06:41 Ugh.
06:42 The Stryker finally figured out how to shut you up.
06:45 Number 12, Solo A Star Wars Story.
06:48 Phil Lord and Chris Miller are very distinctive filmmakers.
06:51 When it became clear that their vision for Solo didn't align with Disney's,
06:55 the two parties went through a very messy public breakup.
06:58 I'll tell you what happened.
06:59 They double-crossed you and tried to kill me.
07:01 The money?
07:02 They kept it.
07:03 And my collection?
07:05 They kept that, too.
07:06 The catch? Filming had already begun.
07:08 A new director, Ron Howard, stepped up to finish the film with an additional eight weeks of production.
07:14 Those highly expensive two months turned into reshooting around 70% of the movie,
07:18 and still, it meant nothing to audiences.
07:21 While the reviews weren't abhorrent, Solo still went down as a total box office embarrassment.
07:26 It's impossible to know if Lord and Miller's version would have performed any better,
07:29 but it certainly would have cost Disney less money.
07:31 I hate you.
07:33 I know.
07:34 Number 11, Spider-Man 3.
07:36 After two films of spandex-clad crime-fighting,
07:39 leveling up to a villain like Venom is the natural next step.
07:42 The issue is that the filmmakers also wanted to resolve Harry Osborn's story
07:46 and show a visually interesting Sandman.
07:48 Oh, and introduce Gwen Stacy, too.
07:50 Spider-Man 3's web of plotlines snapped under the weight of so many characters,
07:54 and it has the bad reputation to prove it.
07:56 It feels good.
07:58 The power.
07:59 Everything.
08:01 But you'll lose yourself.
08:02 It's even more embarrassing because distributor Sony didn't learn their lesson.
08:06 In an attempt to fast-track a Sinister Six spin-off,
08:09 they shoehorned a debilitating amount of villains into The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
08:13 I just...
08:15 I just wanted everyone to see me.
08:17 For those keeping track, that's officially two Spidey franchises done in by too many characters.
08:23 Number 10, Once Upon a Time in America.
08:26 Yes, there's a lot of violence in this movie, but that's the whole point.
08:30 The European edit understood that, but the American version, not so much.
08:34 Concerned about the film's heavy themes,
08:36 the U.S. distributors removed almost an hour and a half of footage from the original cut.
08:40 They rearranged what was left and effectively released a completely different product,
08:44 all without the original director's consent.
08:46 I cannot take the chance to change your mind.
08:48 You were right. I would have said no.
08:49 For a movie with America in its name,
08:51 it's ironic that Once Upon a Time received the worst reception in the United States,
08:55 at least at first.
08:56 The original edit has since made its way overseas
08:59 and is rightfully heralded as one of the greatest gangster movies ever made.
09:02 Is this your way of getting revenge?
09:04 Number 9, The Golden Compass.
09:07 With a rich and beloved book series to pull from,
09:09 this compass pointed directly towards box office gold.
09:12 But unfortunately, the studio didn't want a straight adaptation.
09:16 They wanted a family-oriented holiday blockbuster,
09:19 and that meant watering down the source material's aggressive religious commentary.
09:23 Maybe we shouldn't be doing this.
09:25 Alas, the studio's attempt at broadening the novel's appeal
09:27 only alienated the fans it did have,
09:29 ensuring The Golden Compass ended its theatrical run as a major disappointment.
09:33 If there's any silver lining,
09:35 it's that BBC eventually did the series right with a TV adaptation,
09:38 His Dark Materials.
09:40 Sometimes you've got to have dreams.
09:42 We're going north, Roger.
09:44 I just know we are.
09:46 Nowadays, the serial is considered the de facto adaptation of Philip Pullman's work,
09:50 if only because it actually got a complete adaptation.
09:53 Number 8, Kingdom of Heaven.
09:55 45 minutes is an enormous amount of real estate in a feature film,
09:59 especially in the hands of someone like Ridley Scott.
10:01 But tragically, 20th Century Fox didn't see it that way.
10:05 Stirred by early test screenings,
10:07 the studio insisted that 45 minutes be cut from the three-hour feature.
10:10 Why do you think I'm here?
10:12 What did Fox get for their troubles?
10:14 A big, fat shrug from audiences and critics, that's what.
10:17 Kingdom of Heaven massively underperformed by just about every conceivable metric.
10:22 But, at the very least, Scott got his revenge.
10:25 A king does not kill a king.
10:28 His director's cut received unanimous praise,
10:31 with many citing it as one of the most influential re-edits in history.
10:34 All that from just 45 more minutes.
10:37 Number 7, The Last Airbender.
10:40 Cramming 20 episodes of world-building, character growth,
10:43 and bending action into just an hour and a half is a bad idea.
10:47 But Paramount persisted nonetheless.
10:49 They had a grand pitch for a live-action Avatar trilogy,
10:52 and nothing as silly as pacing was going to stop them.
10:54 You don't need to live like this!
10:56 The poor decision-making didn't stop there either.
10:59 The script was rewritten to oblivion,
11:01 they overused green screens,
11:03 and the finalist is genuinely baffling.
11:05 From rumors of nepotism to the obvious racial profiling,
11:08 this lineup is simply a mess.
11:10 We could go on, but you get the point.
11:12 There's no way one person made all these mistakes.
11:14 No, it takes a village to screw up this bad.
11:17 Number 6, Cleopatra.
11:28 We've gotten off to a bad start, haven't we?
11:31 I've done nothing but rub you the wrong way.
11:33 In an attempt to reinvigorate their sagging profits,
11:36 20th Century Fox greenlit a little movie called Cleopatra.
11:39 To say they spared no expense would be an understatement.
11:42 In fact, it set the record for the most expensive film ever produced at the time.
11:46 The only thing is, you don't see that on screen.
11:49 Most of the costs came from Fox's habit of firing, hiring,
11:52 and re-firing the film's production team on a whim.
11:55 Jealousy or politics, which?
11:57 Both!
11:58 And damn you for not understanding either!
12:01 The hostile work environment carried on well into the editing process,
12:04 where another spontaneous firing nearly caused Elizabeth Taylor to protest the project.
12:08 After all that, it's a miracle the movie turned out at least somewhat watchable.
12:12 Number 5, Justice League.
12:14 Zack Snyder's work on Batman v Superman didn't inspire much faith in the ongoing DC universe,
12:19 and his cut of the in-production Justice League wasn't faring any better.
12:23 Some executives even called it unwatchable.
12:25 So, what was their plan?
12:27 Spend money, and a lot of it.
12:29 "You really are out of your mind!"
12:31 The movie got a new director, a ton of misplaced jokes, and a strict two-hour runtime.
12:36 Then the Frankenstein feature was unceremoniously dropped into theaters
12:39 just so executives could get their yearly bonuses on time.
12:42 It was an unmitigated disaster for everyone, except Zack Snyder.
12:46 His long-awaited director's cut hit streaming in 2021,
12:49 to noticeably better fan reception.
12:51 Not quite what we call "unwatchable", that's for sure.
12:54 "Big round table. Six chairs, right there."
12:58 "But room for more."
13:01 Number 4, Blade Runner.
13:03 Director Ridley Scott had an utter embarrassment of riches working on Blade Runner.
13:07 He had amazing source material, cutting-edge special effects, and an A-list Harrison Ford.
13:12 What he didn't have, though, was a say on the final edit.
13:15 "I don't get it, Tyrone."
13:16 When test audiences found the dense story confusing,
13:19 distributor Warner Bros. added in 13, yes, 13 expository voiceovers.
13:24 Even Ford himself will tell you that this narration was just plain bad.
13:28 Pair that with a forced happy ending,
13:30 and the edgy drama suddenly became a droll snooze-fest.
13:33 "I didn't know how long we'd have together."
13:36 "Who does?"
13:38 While Blade Runner failed to meet expectations on release,
13:41 the much-improved director's cuts eventually turned it into the cult phenomenon it is today.
13:46 Number 3, Heaven's Gate.
13:49 Production company United Artists put all their faith into director Michael Cimino,
13:53 for better or for worse.
13:55 "If we fail, the flag of the United States fails."
13:57 His maddening attention to detail caused the Western to go almost four times over its intended budget.
14:02 In return, he delivered an ambitious five-hour think piece that has to be seen to be believed.
14:07 But at that point, United Artists was understandably fed up.
14:11 Cimino was forced to trim down his work to a more acceptable three and a half hours,
14:15 but all that did was tank the film's creative merits.
14:18 "I sure as hell isn't convenient."
14:20 The movie was a bomb of biblical proportions.
14:22 It was so bad, some historians say the failure of Heaven's Gate
14:26 is the reason Hollywood steered away from director-driven passion projects.
14:29 Number 2, Fantastic Four.
14:32 There's a world where Josh Trank delivers a gritty, thoughtful Fantastic Four film,
14:36 and it absolutely rocks.
14:38 Unfortunately, that's not the movie 20th Century Fox wanted to make.
14:42 "We want to support you, Franklin, but you put a lot of faith in these kids."
14:45 "I put all my faith in them."
14:47 Whether it was because of Trank's erratic directing or too many studio notes,
14:51 the fact of the matter is that no one had a clear idea of what this movie was supposed to look like.
14:55 Allegedly, Fox even had to go over Trank's head just to get the reshoots they wanted.
15:00 "There is only doom."
15:03 As if there was any doubt left on opening weekend,
15:05 Trank took to social media to openly denounce the studio-enforced edit of the film.
15:09 After seeing those career-ending reviews, we don't blame him.
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15:27 Number 1, Alien 3.
15:31 Xenomorphs have nothing on movie studios.
15:33 To put it into perspective, Alien 3 couldn't even start filming before issues arose.
15:38 It went through no less than five different writers,
15:40 none of whom could make the studio's ideas work.
15:43 No need to worry, though.
15:44 Fox had a great backup plan, filming without a finished script.
15:48 "Do you have any faith, sister?"
15:50 "Not much."
15:51 To make matters worse, first-time director David Fincher
15:54 didn't have the clout to fight back against the studio's mandates.
15:57 Allegedly, they even locked him out of the editing room,
16:00 causing Fincher to condemn the movie altogether.
16:02 He wasn't the only one, either.
16:04 Even after a quasi-director's cut earned slightly better reception,
16:07 it's clear that many would rather just forget about Alien 3.
16:10 "Forgive me."
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16:22 [music]