Justin Lin isn't the first, and he won't be the last.
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00:00Filmmaking is nothing if not a stressful business.
00:03Even the smallest, most modest movie is a result of dozens or even hundreds of people
00:08combining their skills to deliver a releasable end product.
00:12The expensive, time-poor nature of filmmaking means that tensions frequently run high on
00:16movie sets, yet once the shoot has started, it's extremely rare for directors to take
00:20their ball and go home.
00:22For one, a director's exit typically signals a major breakdown in communication at some
00:27point or that they've lost any and all confidence they had in the film going in.
00:31But in each case, these filmmakers did the rarest thing of exiting their movie right
00:36in the middle of shooting.
00:37I'm Sci for WhatCulture.com and these are 10 Directors Who Quit Movies During Filming.
00:4310.
00:44David O. Russell – Accidental Love
00:46David O. Russell's follow-up to I Heart Huckabees was originally supposed to be Nailed,
00:50a political comedy co-starring Jessica Biel and Jake Gyllenhaal.
00:54Though the film began shooting in 2008, it was reportedly shut down 14 times during principal
01:00photography due to non-payment of cast and crew prompting Biel and Gyllenhaal to stage
01:04a walkout.
01:06The film sat in production limbo until 2010 amid various financial woes, at which point
01:11Russell was summoned to complete reshoots for the film.
01:14But the director refused to return to shoot new material, claiming that original financer
01:18David Bergstein sabotaged the production for his own gain while also objecting to Bergstein
01:22asking other producers to take 50% pay cuts.
01:26As such, Russell quit the film and the reshoots were eventually conducted without him.
01:30Due to Biel and co-star Tracy Morgan's contractual requirements, however, they were forced to
01:34take part in the reshoots, unlike Gyllenhaal.
01:37Nailed was eventually renamed to the more mainstream-friendly title of Accidental Love
01:41and released in 2015, where it unsurprisingly received predominantly negative reviews.
01:479.
01:48Zack Snyder – Justice League
01:50The production of 2017's original Justice League film was, to be kind, an unmitigated
01:55nightmare.
01:57Though original director Zack Snyder actually completed the initial seven-month shoot, the
02:01film languished in post-production as Warner Bros mandated extensive reshoots to craft
02:05a more crowd-pleasing two-hour revision of Snyder's more epic take on the material.
02:10But Snyder then made the shock announcement that he wouldn't be returning to shoot the
02:13new material due to a personal tragedy, which turned out to be the sudden death of his daughter
02:17Autumn.
02:18Chris Terrio swiftly turned to Joss Whedon, who had already been brought aboard to help
02:22write material for the reshoots, to also film the new scenes and oversee post-production,
02:27creating an entirely new edit of the film.
02:29In the years that followed, Snyder downplayed his involvement with Whedon's version of
02:32the film, while co-writer Chris Terrio later admitted he tried to have his name removed
02:37from it entirely.
02:38In an unprecedented move, though, Snyder's vision was eventually restored, with Warner
02:42Bros paying $70 million for him to complete post-production on his original four-hour
02:46Justice League movie, including shooting an additional epilogue sequence.
02:51Zack Snyder's Justice League went on to receive considerably more positive reviews
02:54than Justice League, with most credits deeming it a vindication of the filmmaker's original
02:59vision.
03:008.
03:01Walter Hill – Supernova 2000 sci-fi horror film Supernova is alleged
03:05to have ended up costing $90 million in total, largely due to differences in vision between
03:11the studio and director Walter Hill.
03:13Hill, a veteran filmmaker with esteemed credits such as The Warriors and 48 Hours, was given
03:18just weeks to prepare the shoot, due to MGM wanting to avoid the film getting entangled
03:23in the impending Screen Actors Guild strike, leaving him little time to iron out scripting
03:28issues.
03:29The last straw for Hill was when MGM wanted to test screen the film without completed
03:33visual effects or the remaining scenes filmed, which he felt would be disastrous.
03:37With MGM refusing to pony up an extra $1.5 million to shoot more scenes before the test
03:42screening, Hill walked away from the production.
03:44The film then hired Jack Shoulder, who you may know from A Nightmare on Elm Street 2,
03:48Freddy's Revenge, to replace him for reshoots and re-editing.
03:51In an ironic turnaround, new MGM executives came in and weren't happy with Shoulder's
03:56cut, so went back to Hill.
03:58Hill suggested $5 million worth of reshoots, which were refused, and Hill once again departed
04:02the project, while the directing was credited instead to Thomas Lee.
04:07Supernova was shelved for a while until MGM brought in Francis Ford Coppola to re-edit
04:11the film at the cost of $1 million.
04:13With test screenings still going poorly, MGM sold the international rights to United Artists
04:18and it was finally released in January 2000, two years later than originally planned.
04:23It went on to flop with critics and general audiences, while many who worked on the film
04:27maintained that much of Hill's work didn't actually appear in the final product.
04:317.
04:32Robert Mandel – The Rage, Carrie 2
04:35Surprisingly enough, it took Hollywood more than 20 years to trot out a sequel to Brian
04:39De Palma's legendary Carrie, with The Rage, Carrie 2, being finally released in 1999.
04:45Production stalled for two years before shooting began in 1998 under director Robert Mandel
04:51of School Ties fame, yet just two weeks into filming, Mandel quit the film citing creative
04:56differences.
04:57Though Mandel hasn't ever elaborated on precisely what these differences were, the
05:01production rushed to replace him with Kat Shee from Poison Ivy fame, drafted in and
05:05given less than a week to prepare for the shoot.
05:08The state of the film also required Shee to reshoot two weeks' worth of material
05:12filmed by Mandel, what little good it did given that The Rage, Carrie 2 was largely
05:17panned by critics and flopped at the box office.
05:20Emily Bergel's performance as Carrie's half-sister protagonist Rachel was, however,
05:24praised by even many of the critics who otherwise lambasted the film.
05:286.
05:29John Lasseter – Toy Story 4
05:31Toy Story 4 was officially announced in November 2014, with then-head of Pixar John Lasseter,
05:36who previously helmed the first two films, set to return to direct.
05:40While animated movies aren't filmed in the traditional way that a live-action movie is,
05:44Lasseter nevertheless announced in July 2017, midway through the movie's production, that
05:49he was stepping back and giving sole directorial duties to first-time filmmaker Josh Cooley.
05:54Lasseter claimed that he was quitting as director due to his combined duties at Pixar, Walt
05:58Disney Animation Studios and DisneyTunes Studios, though given that numerous sexual misconduct
06:03allegations were levelled against him mere months later, many have suspected that he
06:07may have known the accusations were coming and made an early exit in an attempt to save
06:10face.
06:11The very month that the allegations against Lasseter were made public, and he started
06:14a six-month absence from Pixar, Toy Story 4's original writers Rashida Jones and Will
06:19McCormack also withdrew from the film, citing philosophical differences, with most of their
06:24material being rewritten.
06:26Despite major personnel changes, Toy Story 4 was a major critical and commercial success,
06:30with Cooley winning the Oscar for Best Animated Feature in 2020.
06:345.
06:35Victor Fleming – Gone With The Wind
06:37The production of Gone With The Wind is quite literally the stuff of legend, enough that
06:41three separate directors shot extensive portions of the film.
06:45First up was George Cukor, who spent 18 days shooting the film before being fired by producer
06:49David O. Selznick.
06:51Selznick apparently disagreed with Cukor's shooting style, but Cukor was also said to
06:55have clashed with star Clark Gable.
06:58In an attempt to right the ship, Victor Fleming, who was already shooting The Wizard of Oz
07:01at the time, was reassigned to pick up from Cukor on Gone With The Wind.
07:05Yet Fleming himself ended up leaving the shoot abruptly after suffering with exhaustion,
07:09at which point For Whom The Bell Tolls director Sam Wood was drafted in to shoot 24 days worth
07:14of photography.
07:16In Fleming's case, however, he did return to set after recuperating and shot for 93
07:20days in total, accounting for roughly two-thirds of the entire shoot.
07:25As a result, he received the sole directing credit for the film, which impressively bears
07:28few immediately noticeable scars of its hell-for-leather production, and was of course one of Hollywood's
07:34greatest success stories.
07:364.
07:37Kevin Yeager – Hellraiser Bloodline
07:39Hellraiser Bloodline was the fourth entry into the horror franchise, and tellingly the
07:43last to end up getting a theatrical release.
07:46After reanimator director Stuart Gordon quit the project during pre-production, special
07:50effects technician Kevin Yeager was hired to make his directorial debut with the film,
07:55having a reputation for producing quality work within tight budgetary constraints.
07:59The shoot was nevertheless fraught with problems, as numerous key crew members were either fired
08:04or replaced during filming, and though Yeager came in under budget and on time as promised,
08:09Miramax wasn't happy with his work.
08:11Yeager wasn't thrilled at the prospect of something he worked hard on becoming another
08:14movie entirely, fears which were fully realised when he viewed the final cut of the movie.
08:19This version, which saw new director Joe Chappelle shoot new scenes and significantly
08:23trim down Yeager's original material, strayed enough from Yeager's vision that he opted
08:28to take the infamous Alan Smithy credit instead.
08:32Though Bloodline was a mild commercial success, it was panned by critics and signalled the
08:36series' decline into lower-budget direct-to-video fare.
08:403.
08:41Carol Reid – Mutiny on the Bounty
08:431962's Mutiny on the Bounty went into production with the legendary Carol Reid directing, but
08:49three months into the shoot, Reid left the set and flew home due to what the studio described
08:54as an undisclosed ailment.
08:56In actuality, Reid was fed up with the difficult star Marlon Brando, as well as meddling from
09:01both the film's producers and studio MGM, and walked away from filming.
09:06Oscar-winning director Lewis Milestone was then brought in to replace him, who claimed
09:10that Reid had only been able to shoot a single seven-minute scene to completion during his
09:13time on the film.
09:15Milestone didn't fare much better, suffering through a tyrannical Brando, inclement weather
09:20on the Taishan set, and script issues, all of which collectively bloated the budget out
09:24by an additional $10 million.
09:272.
09:28Justin Lin – Fast X
09:30The most recent entry into our list is perhaps the most shocking of all.
09:34Just six days after the tenth Fast and Furious film began shooting, writer-director Justin
09:38Lin announced that he was leaving the project due to the ever-nebulous creative differences.
09:43Lin, who previously helmed five entries into the franchise, including Fast X's direct
09:48predecessor F9, has been largely credited with the series' blockbuster success, and
09:54so fans immediately began to speculate what could possibly push him to quit his sixth
09:58movie a few days into shooting.
10:00Rumours soon ran rampant that it was due to a dispute between Lin and star producer Vin
10:05Diesel.
10:06Sparked by an Instagram video Diesel posted mere days before Lin's departure, where
10:10Lin appeared visibly uncomfortable.
10:12This was later confirmed to be the case by The Hollywood Reporter, who cited Lin's
10:16frustration with continually changing aspects of Fast X's production, and especially Diesel's
10:21repeated requests for script changes.
10:23With Universal said to be burning up $1 million a day, leaving the cast and crew on standby,
10:28they soon enough announced that Lin was being replaced by Louis Leterria of The Transporter,
10:33The Incredible Hulk, and Now You See Me.
10:361.
10:37Jonathan Lawrence – Empires of the Deep
10:39If you haven't heard of Empires of the Deep, don't feel bad, because the 3D fantasy film
10:43has never actually been released, despite starting shooting in 2009 with a stonking
10:49$130 million budget.
10:51The film was the brainchild of Chinese billionaire realtor Zhong Zhang, who desperately wanted
10:56to produce his own Spielberg-esque mega-blockbuster.
10:59After several higher profile directors quit the project, including The Empire Strikes
11:03Back's Irving Kirschner, Zhang settled for commercial and musical video director Jonathan
11:08Lawrence.
11:09Lawrence, who had no major feature film credits to his name, has since detailed the extremely
11:14difficult shoot, defined by culture clashes between the Chinese crew and international
11:18cast, producer Zhang's intrusive amount of control over the project, and the misery
11:23of shooting on location in unpredictable weather conditions.
11:26Lawrence toughed out for five whole months before walking away from the production, at
11:30which point Michael French was drafted in to film the remaining two-thirds of the script.
11:34French lasted two months before departing for an existing project, where he was replaced
11:38by Scott Miller, who successfully completed filming in late 2010.
11:43Reshoots were conducted in 2014, and though trailers have since been released, crowdfunding
11:47efforts to complete vital visual effects work haven't been successful.
11:51What a mess.
11:52And that's our list.
11:53Let us know what you thought in the comments below, as well as letting us know other directors
11:57that took their ball and went home.
11:59I'm Sci for WhatCulture.com, and have a good week.