Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re looking at films so bad that their once-respected directors lost credibility in the industry.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at films so bad that their once-respected
00:08directors lost credibility in the industry.
00:23Richard Kelly's overnight cult following wanted him to top the thought-provoking surrealism
00:28of the 2001 masterpiece Donnie Darko.
00:30Five years later, Southland Tales managed to bewilder the Cannes Film Festival.
00:35Several genres and a star-studded ensemble in a dystopian society on the brink of collapse.
00:40That much is accessible in the convoluted abstract plot and gimmicky set-pieces across
00:44two and a half hours.
00:53It would be a year and a half before Southland Tales got a catastrophic theatrical release,
00:58with reviews divided between fascination and contempt.
01:01Most agree that Kelly took his bizarre vision too far.
01:04He has not directed a movie since 2009's The Box, but has talked about reviving Southland
01:08Tales.
01:09Despite its own cult following, investing in Kelly's craft may no longer be worth
01:13the risk.
01:33Joe Dante made a name for himself directing absurd horror-comedy mash-ups that felt like
01:38homages to B-movies of the 1950s, such as The Birbs, Inner Space and the cult classic
01:43Gremlins.
01:44Considering his films already had the slapstick antics of a Looney Tunes cartoon, it seemed
01:49like a match made in heaven that he was placed in charge of back-in-action.
01:51Unfortunately, the film was released amidst tough competition from other family films,
02:03and its middling critical reception didn't help either.
02:06While Joe Dante is still managing to find work today, it's mostly restricted to TV
02:10gigs and his films make nowhere near the same impact they once did.
02:25While Rennie Harlin was never a critical darling like the other filmmakers we have covered
02:29so far, he had his fair share of hits.
02:32Cliffhanger and Die Hard 2 have earned their place as iconic pieces of film history.
02:36Conversely, Cutthroat Island marked his downward spiral, as its dismal $10 million box office
02:42gross against a $98 million budget put an entire film studio out of business and the
02:47movie itself was extremely forgettable to boot.
02:54Rennie Harlin never recovered after this film's failure, directing numerous flops such as
02:58Driven and The Legend of Hercules, along with being nominated for the Worst Director Razzie
03:03multiple times.
03:20The award-sweeping The King's Speech established Tom Hooper's knack for lushly produced prestige.
03:25He took it to operatic heights with a brilliant adaptation of the musical Les Miserables,
03:30so it seemed there was finally a filmmaker capable of bringing the Andrew Lloyd Webber
03:34classic Cats to the screen.
03:39Unfortunately, not even Hooper could save this clunky, incoherent rendition of a corny
03:47fantasy.
03:48If the blockbuster musical was mostly about the spectacle, the movie's disturbing human
03:51cat effects even ruined that.
03:53Its 40 years of anticipation came down to a box office bomb with historically bad reviews.
03:58Despite the esteem before this catastrophe, if you will, Hooper's notorious creative
04:03control has made it hard for him to land on his feet.
04:17Mr Campbell directed the hit, The Mask of Zorro, and successfully rebooted the James
04:21Bond franchise not once, but twice with GoldenEye and Casino Royale.
04:25Campbell proved he was a capable filmmaker and seemed like the perfect choice to bring
04:29the Green Lantern to life.
04:30Alas, this $200 million dollar behemoth bombed hard at the box office and was ripped to shreds
04:36by critics for its messy screenplay and spotty visual effects.
04:46The film had a troubled production behind the scenes, so it wasn't all Martin Campbell's
04:50fault, but sadly his name was attached to this train wreck, severely damaging his reputation
04:54in the long run.
05:09While McTiernan is the man responsible for Bringo's classic action-fix-like Predator
05:12and the original Die Hard, audiences and critics alike felt that he lost his edge after seeing
05:17his remake of the 1975 film, Rollerball.
05:26In an interesting twist, it isn't the film itself that ruined McTiernan's career, but
05:30actually what happened behind the scenes.
05:32McTiernan was charged in federal court for lying to the FBI about how he hired a private
05:37investigator to follow the film's producer due to disagreements they were having about
05:41Rollerball.
05:42This entire lawsuit spanned nearly a decade, with McTiernan eventually spending a year
05:46in prison and finishing his sentence under house arrest in 2014.
06:02Kevin Costner went from movie star to Oscar-winning filmmaker with Dancers With Wolves.
06:06He then becomes synonymous with 90s Hollywood epics, some of which critically and commercially
06:11disappointed.
06:12And his and Kevin Reynolds' creative conflicts behind the infamous flop, Waterworld, is sort
06:16of subject to debate, but The Postman was all on Costner.
06:24The three-hour-long post-apocalyptic folly is as cheesy as it is tedious.
06:28It bombed at the box office, but won big at the Golden Raspberries.
06:31The well-received open range aside, Costner lost a lot of clout as an epic headliner on
06:36both sides of the camera.
06:38With his directorial comeback, Horizon, and American Saga bombing on the first of four
06:42planned installments, Costner clearly hasn't learned his lesson about over-ambition.
07:02Ron Underwood's claim to fame arrived with the 1990 sci-fi cult classic, Tremors, which
07:07he followed up with the hit comedy, City Slickers.
07:10While his subsequent efforts were mostly met with mixed results, nothing threw a wrench
07:14into his movie-making ambition quite like The Adventures of Pluto Nash.
07:24The movie itself has been unanimously reviled as an abomination for its terrible acting,
07:29writing and special effects, with some even going as far as calling it one of the worst
07:33films of that decade.
07:35It didn't help that Pluto Nash only raked in a measly $7 million against its massive
07:40$100 million production budget.
07:42That's gonna leave a mark.
07:57Crime comedies were never the same after Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and Snatch.
08:01Guy Ritchie then showed his range with a remake of the Italian romance, Swept Away.
08:05His then-wife, pop megastar Madonna, plays a spoiled socialite who gets marooned on an
08:10island with a deckhand.
08:12Somehow, all the passion and politics of the original film went overboard.
08:16All that's left is an insipid farce that drowns Madonna's charm and cheapens Ritchie's
08:20signature style.
08:28The movie sank at the box office, and then it swept the Razzies.
08:32Madonna effectively quit acting.
08:34And while Ritchie remains prolific, his work has gotten strangely hit or miss with critics.
08:39Despite his undeniable influence on genre filmmakers everywhere, we don't think Ritchie
08:43himself has ever really gotten over-swept away.
08:58There were high hopes for 20th Century Fox's reboot of Fantastic Four, at least with its
09:03director.
09:04Josh Trank won critical and cult renown for the gritty superhero flick, Chronicle.
09:08Unfortunately, more money didn't make for a better product.
09:112015's Fantastic Four was as corny as the previous film, Incarnations, and a lot more
09:16boring.
09:17If that didn't kill Trank's Hollywood career alongside franchise prospects, his
09:26own review did the trick.
09:27A disparaging social media post before the film's release led to Trank essentially
09:32being blacklisted in the industry.
09:33When he returned with an experimental drama about the last days of Al Capone, the mixed
09:37reception offered no redemption.
09:39Whether he's labelled a one-hit wonder or a whistleblower, Trank is unfortunately grounded.
09:56Martin Brest unleashed a string of successful films upon the movie-going scene, with Beverly
10:00Hills Cop in particular being one of the biggest hits of the 1980s.
10:04Good things don't last forever, it seems, as Gigli single-handedly killed Brest's
10:09reputation going forward.
10:18The movie won multiple Razzies, including Worst Screenplay, Director and Picture.
10:23Gigli is additionally recognised as one of the most expensive financial failures in film
10:27history, on top of being considered one of the worst movies ever made, period.
10:31To say Gigli dampened Brest's film career would be an absolute understatement, as he
10:36hasn't directed, produced or written any film or TV projects since its release.
10:56Cameron Crowe delivered memorable masterpieces like Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous.
11:00He also split audiences with Vanilla Sky, Elizabeth Town and We Bought a Zoo, but everyone
11:06seems to agree that Aloha took his quirks too far.
11:13The movie was already controversial for casting Emma Stone, who was the love interest and
11:17supposed to be of Chinese-Hawaiian parentage.
11:20Ultimately, critics panned the plodding, incoherent story of a military contractor juggling personal
11:25drama with some shady satellite project.
11:31The over-ambitious rom-com sure didn't draw much of a crowd.
11:34After almost a decade of development, Aloha's failure meant goodbye to Crowe's filmmaking
11:39career.
11:40And after a disastrous comeback to music in Showtime's short-lived series, Roadies,
11:44it's best to stick to nostalgia for his early work.
11:57Though Roland Emmerich never had a towering reputation with critics, audiences didn't
12:02care.
12:03Groundbreaking blockbusters like Stargate and Independence Day made him a big enough
12:06name to bring a Japanese icon to Hollywood.
12:091998's Godzilla had the right director for disaster thrills, but the script was the real
12:14disaster.
12:19Not even casual moviegoers had much patience for the nonsensical material surrounding oversized
12:25spectacle.
12:26The movie made money, but not enough to be anything more than a staple of bad Hollywood
12:29remakes.
12:30Emmerich has since become synonymous with bottom-of-the-barrel action and disaster flicks
12:34that are mostly hyped as camp.
12:41His fluff still draws a crowd, but from Godzilla to dramatic turns like Stonewall, there's
12:46no more pretending that Emmerich has vision.
13:00Oliver Stone's iconoclastic triumphs kept getting bigger and more stylish, but with
13:04Alexander, the scale reached a breaking point.
13:15The three-hour-long epic plays fast and loose with the life of ancient Greek conqueror Alexander
13:19the Great.
13:20Stone attributed its box-office disappointment largely to backlash against speculations on
13:25the subject's sexuality.
13:26The truth is that the dull, bloated and dubious history lecture was far from great.
13:37Critics and historians have since debated the merits of Alexander, especially with its
13:41various director's cuts.
13:43But Stone could no longer be trusted with projects that massive, his subsequent work
13:47seeing inconsistent critical and commercial feedback.
13:50The dwindling output since his historic defeat in 2004 suggests that his lack of compromise
13:55is now just a liability.
14:09Lana and Lily Wachowski revolutionised sci-fi epics with the Matrix trilogy.
14:13Well, at least most critics say that about the first instalment.
14:17The sisters' high-concept blockbusters were always debated in theme and quality, until
14:21Jupiter Ascending came crashing down.
14:30The big-budget spectacle was convoluted by nearly every space opera cliché one can imagine.
14:35Despite the dazzling special effects, it was too cheesy and blandly written to be memorable.
14:40And yet, the critical and commercial flop still haunts audiences.
14:44Even after the Wachowskis pursued their own careers, the Showtime series, Work in Progress
14:48and even Matrix Resurrections weren't exactly hits.
14:51Although Netflix's Sense8 wound up a favourite among fans, Jupiter Ascending got them to
14:56start questioning their visionary filmmaker's vision.
15:13Italian comedic actor Roberto Benigni achieved international acclaim as a filmmaker.
15:18He was particularly praised for finding wholesome dramedy in the Holocaust with Life is Beautiful.
15:23This earned him Italy's biggest movie budget ever to write and direct his own Pinocchio.
15:28The 49-year-old Benigni's first error was casting himself as the puppet who becomes
15:32a real child.
15:37The comedy only gets more absurd and awkward in its attempts to faithfully adapt Carlo
15:42Collodi's morbid fantasy.
15:44Benigni's Pinocchio became a legendary critical and box office disaster, effectively ending
15:49the star's global status.
15:51He even faded into obscurity in Italy.
15:53Though Benigni did find some redemption playing Geppetto in a hit 2019 adaptation of Pinocchio,
15:59there may be no cobbling his film-making brand.
16:10From romantic dramas to sleek thrillers, Joel Schumacher attracted a cult following
16:20across many genres in the 80s and 90s.
16:23His dark yet lively flair was certainly suited to the fun Batman Forever, but Batman & Robin
16:28was camp overkill.
16:38The silly production, atrocious dialogue and nonsensical story practically destroyed
16:42the prestige in superhero movies that this franchise helped establish.
16:46It would be years before Warner Bros attempted another theatrical Batman film, with Schumacher's
16:50planned trilogy going cold.
16:52He was rarely given big productions after that, and frequently bombed with critics and
16:56audiences.
16:57Schumacher is now as respected as ever for his influence and diverse classics.
17:01Still, he never lived down making one of the worst superhero movies ever.
17:13Sadly even the great director who brought us The Godfather, Apocalypse Now and The Outsiders
17:18has stumbled.
17:20Jack felt like a complete waste of the talent, with Coppola in particular completely missing
17:24the mark in terms of storytelling and compelling direction.
17:35The film has a vicious 17% Rotten Tomatoes score, and performed modestly at the box office
17:41– a complete reversal of the reception Coppola's prior films received.
17:45Since then, Coppola has continued to make movies such as Tetro and Twixt, which we're
17:49sure many of you have never even heard of, indicating that this once-renowned director's
17:54time to shine seems to have long since passed.
18:08Two short years after winning the Best Director Oscar for his work on The Deer Hunter, Michael
18:12Cimino received the Worst Director Razzie for Heaven's Gate.
18:15For one to go from the highest high to the lowest low in such a short span of time is
18:20shocking, especially with accusations of animal abuse on set.
18:24The film's pitiful $3.5 million box office gross sent United Artists on a panicked crash
18:29course, with the consensus being that Heaven's Gate marked the death knell for the beloved
18:34independent studio.
18:40Cimino would never direct a production that ambitious again.
18:44With director's cut restorations and long-term reappraisal, Heaven's Gate is now widely
18:48considered a classic.
18:49At the time, though, Hell's Gate seemed like a more appropriate title.
19:17After The Revelations, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, M. Night Shyamalan began dividing
19:21critics.
19:22They certainly agreed that despite Shyamalan's fight for creative control, Lady in the Water
19:26was a flop, and The Happening was even worse.
19:30At least Shyamalan seemed to still have creativity, until The Last Airbender.
19:38Besides the controversy over its whitewashed cast, this adaptation of a beloved Nickelodeon
19:42series was a humourless, poorly made slog.
19:45So much for the planned trilogy.
19:47Shyamalan has since admitted that he was the wrong director for this project, but his return
19:51to thrillers has been hit or miss at best.
19:53I mean, there have been enough hits for Shyamalan's name to no longer automatically emit groans,
19:58but still, the one-time, next Spielberg reminds us to always temper hype with filmmakers.
20:09So what are your least favourite movies from your favourite filmmakers?
20:12Please give your, hopefully constructive, criticism in the comments.