“You can’t polish a turd”: 10 movies so bad they were disowned by their directors
Once principal photography and post-production have been completed, a director‘s involvement with their latest film is done, and there’s nothing they can do about it. Well, almost.
If the movie in question has turned out to be a black mark against the good name of cinema, then they can try and have their name removed. Ed Wood might be celebrated as one of the worst filmmakers to have ever picked up a megaphone and called action, but he’s got nothing on Alan Smithee.
The staple pseudonym that doubled as a harbinger of celluloid doom was gradually phased out, but there are a number of ways for a disgruntled director to distance themselves from their work. They can opt for another made-up moniker, openly trash it to anyone willing to listen, or abandon ship and let somebody else take over.
The following ten movies feature a combination of the three, with the overriding sentiment being that every single one of them knew that some features just couldn’t be saved under any circumstances.
10 movies disowned by directors:
10. Hellraiser: Bloodline (Kevin Yagher, 1996)
The fourth instalment in a horror franchise that peaked with the very first chapter was never going to be a beacon of cinematic excellence, but what makes Hellraiser: Bloodline so interesting is that it was directed by two different filmmakers, neither of whom went credited upon its release.
Serving as a prequel and sequel at once while dealing in additional sci-fi elements, it was an ambitious undertaking for first-time feature director Kevin Yagher, with the studio deciding he was ill-equipped for the task. Miramax wasn’t happy with the assembly cut and ordered reshoots, which the filmmaker declined to helm following a troubled shoot that saw the art department and camera crew fired and replaced during the first week.
Joe Chappelle was drafted in to oversee additional photography that stretched on for almost two months, while the editing process saw Bloodline drastically reworked from what Yagher had in mind. He opted for the Alan Smithee pseudonym, Chappelle didn’t receive credit either, and the former hasn’t even directed anything ever since.
9. Solar Crisis (Richard C. Sarafian, 1990)
On paper, the sci-fi story Solar Crisis had plenty of potential to succeed based on its cast, crew, and concept, but director Richard C. Sarafian ended up disowning it completely and willingly handing his credit over to that man Alan Smithee again.
The filmmaker helmed the 1971 cult classic Vanishing Point – which has been named as a favourite by Steven Spielberg, Edgar Wright, and Quentin Tarantino – while the cast featured Academy Award winners Charlton Heston and Jack Palance, not to mention a princely budget of $55million.
The plot finds a band of intrepid astronauts sent out into space to redirect a solar flare destined to destroy the planet with a huge bomb; with Japanese investor Nippon Steel so confident in its success, the company announced a theme park based on the film. Instead, it sank without a trace, leading Sarafian to demand his name be removed.
8. Babylon A.D. (Mathieu Kassovitz, 2008)
Vin Diesel had the temerity to celebrate Michelle Yeoh winning a Golden Globe for Everything Everywhere All at Once by posting an image of the pair together on the set of Babylon A.D. while offering his congratulations, even though it stands out as the worst movie of her entire career by far.
It was a critical and commercial catastrophe, but in true Diesel fashion, the theatrical cut ended with a potential sequel tease, not that it was ever going to happen when it crashed and burned in cinemas. Even if it was a hit, co-writer and director Mathieu Kassovitz hardly gave off the impression he’d be willing to return.
The filmmaker slammed studio 20th Century Fox for “sending lawyers who were looking at all the commas and the dots” before declaring himself “very unhappy with the film”. That’s a sentiment echoed by anyone unlucky enough to have seen it, but Kassovitz did at least distance himself from the debacle by clarifying how he “never had the chance to do one scene the way it was written or the way I wanted it to be”.
7. Fantastic Four (Josh Trank, 2015)
In one of the most counterintuitive marketing techniques to come along in a while, director Josh Trank disavowed his reboot of Marvel‘s Fantastic Four by telling the world there was a great version of the movie that existed; it just wasn’t the one about to be released.
The day before the fourth feature starring the titular team boasting a third different line-up was set to be rolled out to multiplexes around the world, Trank basically called it shit. “A year ago, I had a fantastic version of this, and it would’ve received great reviews,” he wrote on social media with the pun potentially intended. “You’ll probably never see it. That’s reality, though.”
20th Century Fox nonetheless claimed with a completely straight face that it supported the filmmaker’s original vision despite him literally telling everyone that wasn’t what they were getting, with Trank since refusing to acknowledge Fantastic Four as part of his filmography.
6. Hellboy (Neil Marshall, 2019)
After fans of the duology, director Guillermo del Toro and star Ron Perlman had spent a decade repeatedly stating their desire for a third Hellboy under their watch to happen, they were completely ignored in favour of a disastrous reboot.
Neil Marshall was once one of the most promising genre filmmakers in the business, but it’s been a very long time since he helmed a movie that can be called inarguably excellent. The comic book adaptation most definitely wasn’t a return to form, and he made a point of distancing himself from it completely.
Beyond calling it “not a film that I would consider to be part of my canon,” he described Hellboy as “the worst professional experience of my life” in an interview with Critical Drinker. Summing it up to a tee, Marshall admitted that “you can’t polish a turd, no matter how much you try”. Having clearly learned its lesson, Lionsgate remarkably has yet another Hellboy reboot shot in the can, and awaiting release.
5. Supernova (Walter Hill, 2000)
A proven commodity, having helmed The Warriors, pioneered the buddy cop formula in 48 Hrs, and worked on the story for James Cameron‘s Aliens, Walter Hill seemed like the ideal candidate to oversee a sci-fi actioner that could best be described as Hellraiser in space.
Answering a mysterious distress call, an enigmatic young man is welcomed aboard the ship Nightingale 229, where the alien artefact he smuggled aboard threatens to cause galactic chaos. James Spader and Angela Bassett made for a solid pair of leads, but Hill ended up going credited as Thomas Lee.
Hill said the budget was cut midway through shooting, and after spending months trying to cobble together a halfway decent edit, he decided enough was enough and quit. Jack Sholder came in for reshoots, and Francis Ford Coppola was even enlisted to try and hammer Supernova into salvageable shape. That didn’t happen, and two years behind schedule, it was sent to cinemas to die a slow death.
4. Dream House (Jim Sheridan, 2011)
If there’s one silver lining to come from Dream House, it’s that stars Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz met on the set of the monotonous psychological thriller, and they’ve been together ever since. That’s about the only good thing to come of the film, something director Jim Sheridan would readily admit.
As the mastermind behind My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father, and In America, it’s not as if the filmmaker was out of his depth, but Sheridan ended up repeatedly clashing with the power players at production company Morgan Creek.
Sheridan fought hard to have his name removed, but after a second round of reshoots were approved to try and save Dream House, he withdrew his request. It wasn’t enough to prevent a critical drubbing and box office annihilation, though, with the director refusing to take part in the press tour as a final act of defiance.
3. Accidental Love (David O. Russell, 2015)
Once the arse fell out of the movie David O. Russell planned on making, he completely washed his hands of the project. That didn’t deter the financiers in the slightest, who went ahead and pieced together the abomination that was Accidental Love.
There were over a dozen shutdowns and multiple walkouts from the cast and crew as ongoing financial issues repeatedly stymied production, with the Academy Award-nominated filmmaker going on record to state that he was “no longer involved in the project and cannot call it ‘my film'”.
Fast forward four years after his departure, and the film initially titled Nailed arrived not entirely fully-formed as Accidental Love, complete with the non-existent Stephen Greene credited as co-writer and director. Based on the end result, it was better off left to rot.
2. Woman Wanted (Kiefer Sutherland, 1999)
Kiefer Sutherland has dabbled in directing several times over the years, but his final contribution to the world of feature-length cinema ended up making a slice of history after he disavowed his involvement.
Playing the lead role and co-starring opposite Holly Hunter, the latter stars as a housekeeper who gets drawn into the rivalry brewing between Golden Globe winner Michael Moriarty’s widower and his adult son, played by Sutherland.
A middling romantic drama doesn’t scream ‘history-maker’, but after having his name removed from the behind-the-camera credits, Woman Wanted endures as the final movie to be released with the Alan Smithee pseudonym in place, with the fictional filmmaker being discontinued the following year.
1. Fear and Desire (Stanley Kubrick, 1953)
He may be remembered as one of the greatest directors cinema has ever seen, but Stanley Kubrick couldn’t sanction the idea of viewers tracking down and revisiting his debut feature Fear and Desire.
The film mysteriously disappeared from circulation in the years after its release, with one of the many urban legends surrounding Kubrick alleging that he’d destroyed the original negative and embarked upon a journey to track down and eradicate as many remaining copies as he could find.
As tends to be the case more often than not, though, Fear and Desire endured much to its creator’s chagrin. When it became public domain and started screening for cinephiles without the threat of legal action, Kubrick openly trashed his first feature to discourage people from watching it, calling the drama “a bumbling amateur film exercise” that wasn’t reflective of who he was as an artist.
