Five directors who hate their most famous movies
Directing movies is a lot like having children. You spent a lot of time and effort making them the best they can be, and you love every single one of them in their own way, but sometimes, you can’t help but hate the little twerps for what they’ve put you through.
Not every movie in a director’s catalogue can be a winner, even if they do go on to become world famous. As these five filmmakers know all too well, sometimes the thing you hate the most ends up becoming most closely associated with you.
There are many reasons why a director can hate their own film, but a major one seems to be studio interference. Know-nothing suits tweaking things to suit their precious algorithms, which is a long-running issue for creatives, has led to some of the people on this list asking to have their names removed from the final product.
It can’t be nice for a filmmaker to detest anything they’ve worked on, and in the case of these directors, it would have stung even more when the movies in question ended up becoming the ones they were most closely associated with, for better or worse.
Five directors who despise their most famous film:
Tony Kaye (‘American History X’, 1998)
If you’re looking to get people’s attention with your first film, then making it about neo-Nazis is a great place to start, which is precisely what Tony Kaye did for his debut feature, American History X. Starring Edward Norton as a reformed White supremacist, the movie follows his attempts to convince his brother (Edward Furlong) that the ideology they used to share is wrong. It’s a hell of a watch, gripping, unrelenting, and (unfortunately) still so relevant today. It’s widely regarded as an absolute masterpiece, just not by the man who made it.
The theatrically released version of American History X is 24 minutes longer than the one Kaye initially submitted. As a result of this studio tampering, the director launched a relentless crusade against the film, publicly disowning it and saying some very nasty things about Norton. Naturally, this tanked Kaye’s career.
He didn’t make another movie for eight years until the release of the controversial documentary Lake of Fire in 2006. He’s still working as a filmmaker, putting out work as recently as 2024, but he has never again reached the same heights as he did with his debut.
Josh Trank (‘Fantastic Four’, 2015)
When 20th Century Fox was looking for somebody to direct its Fantastic Four reboot, the studio settled on a man who, by all accounts, ticked all the boxes. Josh Trank was young, innovative, and was coming off the back of a critical hit with his debut feature Chronicle. Surely, he would be the man to capitalise on the popularity of superhero movies and make a Fantastic Four film that would put the titular team right up there with Iron Man and Captain America.
Not only was the movie absolute garbage, but it also made Trank’s life a living hell. Reports of the director’s erratic behaviour, combined with tales of studio meddling, seriously soured the prodigy on what was supposed to be his big break. He even suggested that he wanted to erase the film from existence, but it remains a permanent stain on his body of work, and it would take another five years for him to return to the director’s chair.
Joel Schumacher (‘Batman & Robin’, 1997)
Poor Joel Schumacher. The late director always felt like he had way more potential than he ever got the chance to show. St. Elmo’s Fire, Flatliners, and The Lost Boys are all really fun films, and it felt like his career was really about to take off when he landed the job of replacing Tim Burton. Batman Forever, the one and only outing of Val Kilmer as Bruce Wayne, wasn’t brilliant, but it showed some promise. Then came the big one – 1997’s Batman & Robin.
This notoriously shoddy comic book flick not only damaged Schumacher’s career and George Clooney’s reputation, but it also killed Batman in the movies until Christopher Nolan rocked up to save the day. In an interview with Vice in 2017, the director felt the need to say sorry for his much-maligned work.
“I want to apologise to every fan that was disappointed because I think I owe them that,” he said. “A lot of it was my choice. No one is responsible for my mistakes but me.” Even after this heartfelt plea, very few paying customers were in a position to forgive him.
Kevin Yagher (‘Hellraiser: Bloodline’, 1996)
Kevin Yagher is a legendary name in horror movie special effects. He’s worked on films from some of the biggest scary franchises ever, from Child’s Play to Children of the Corn via A Nightmare on Elm Street. His sole director’s credit comes from another legendary series, as he was the one in charge of Hellraiser: Bloodline, the fourth instalment in Pinhead’s big adventures, not that you’d know this from watching the original cut because Yagher hated it so much that he requested his name be changed to Alan Smithee in the credits.
Miramax, the company that distributed the picture, went to town to dismantle Yagher’s original vision. They ordered extensive reshoots, overseen by future The Wire director Joe Chappelle, and cut a full 25 minutes of original material from the finished product. Yagher was, understandably, furious with these decisions, especially the one to change the film’s ending to send audiences home happy. He never directed a feature ever again and eventually stopped working on horrors altogether, with most recent makeup credits including Bill & Ted Face the Music and the TV show Bones. Coincidence? Definitely not.
Alan Taylor (‘Thor: The Dark World’, 2013)
Alan Taylor was an experienced filmmaker who’d helmed episodes of countless big-name TV shows, including The Sopranos, The West Wing, Mad Men, and Game of Thrones, before he was handed his highest-profile feature gig by far on Marvel Studios’ Thor: The Dark World.
Of course, the comic book juggernaut has previous when it comes to taking talented directors and handing them the reins of sloppy superhero blockbusters, and Taylor fell firmly into that camp when the biggest, most successful, and most famous movie of his career turned out to be a dull slog that he actively distanced himself from in the aftermath.
“The Marvel experience was particularly wrenching because I was sort of given absolute freedom while we were shooting, and then in post, it turned into a different movie,” he said with the benefit of hindsight. “So, that is something I hope never to repeat and don’t wish upon anybody else.”
