Directors and sequels/trilogies...

[CTTT]

Why is it with some hits, they have a hard time sticking to the director that helped make a hit in the first place? Same with finishing off a trilogy. I think it's kind of jarring to make a tonal shift in the middle of a story...

Some examples of this:

Patty Jenkins

Scott Derrickson

Kenneth Branagh(Thor)

Jon Favreau

Can you imagine someone else finishing Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy? Foot, meet banana peel.

[AndrewCrossett]

It's usually only a problem when a) the original director has an auteur style that contributed very much to the quality of the original movie and b) the movie was his/her baby.

There are a lot of gun-for-hire directors that can step right in and do a decent follow-up when the template has already been created. This has been done very successfully with the Marvel movies, the Harry Potter movies, the Bourne trilogy, the 007 movies, etc. In Nolan's case, this was his personal take on the Batman story.

In most cases where the director is also the writer, it will be more difficult for another team to come in and bring the same success.

[Midvillian1322]

Why is it with some hits, they have a hard time sticking to the director that helped make a hit in the first place? Same with finishing off a trilogy. I think it's kind of jarring to make a tonal shift in the middle of a story...

Some examples of this:

Patty Jenkins

Scott Derrickson

Kenneth Branagh(Thor)

Jon Favreau

Can you imagine someone else finishing Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy? Foot, meet banana peel.

Why is Patty Jenkins in this list? Did something happen to Wonder Woman 3? Last I heard they were fast tracking it with her coming back to direct.

Also Favrou didn't want to do Ironman 3. He wanted to make a Magic Kingdom film that never happened. He was still a cast member and producer in Ironman 3 though.

[Frobisher]

With stuff like Deadpool and John Wick they seem to swap around directors on a whim and it makes little to no difference. That said, both the Bourne and Taken sequels descended into shakey cam bullshit after a dubious director change.

[Castle]

X-Men 1, 2 and 3 is the most infamous of all and the best example of a franchise taking quite a nosedive when a director leaves to do another film.

Spiderman ,1, 2, and 3 is the second best example, although Sam Raimi stayed for the 3rd film he lost so much control , as the creative force, the film also took a nosedive

[Kirby101]

With stuff like Deadpool and John Wick they seem to swap around directors on a whim and it makes little to no difference. That said, both the Bourne and Taken sequels descended into shakey cam bullshit after a dubious director change.

Chad Stahelski directed all 3 John Wick movies, on Deadpool it was creative differences with Ryan Renolds.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

There are exceptions.

-- Blade II was directed by Guillermo del Toro, the first by Stephen Norrington.
-- ALIENS by James Cameron is considered by some to be as good, if not better, than ALIEN by Ridley Scott.

[CTTT]

There are exceptions.

-- Blade II was directed by Guillermo del Toro, the first by Stephen Norrington.
-- ALIENS by James Cameron is considered by some to be as good, if not better, than ALIEN by Ridley Scott.

And then with Blade: Trinity you have Wesley Snipes and David Goyer not getting along to the point that a standin had to be put in when Snipes refused to come on set, which was unfortunate for the movie.

The Alien frabchise...ay yai yai...David Fincher had his control taken away from him plus they weren't really working with a proper script and had to do things on the fly. For 3 and 4 20th Century Fox should have paid Ridley Scott and James Cameron the salaries they wanted to put a nice capper on the series.