directors whose careers their box office bombs ruined?

[Kirby101]

In the cases of Shatner, Akroyd or even Marlin Brando, it might be they didn't like the experience of directing and decided to just be an actor. There are other actors with just one or two directorial movie.

[ChrisIII]

Both Shatner and Akroyd at least have fair share of writing; although I'm pretty sure Shatner is more of an ideas guy and gets help and ghostwriters (The Reeves-Stevens I think) with at least his Trek stuff.

Akroyd of course wrote Ghostbusters, although I think a lot of his more extreme ideas were tempered by Ramis's input.

[Totoro Man]

...gender definitely plays a role. I mean it's pretty impossible to say otherwise. Women make up just shy of 50% of the population and yet only 14% of directors are female. You just can't get that kind of ratio in any natural way.

and yet... I don't recall Mister Mets ever saying otherwise. did I miss something?

the idea that every industry needs to reflect the gender or racial demography of the culture is a VERY recent idea. it will take time before culture decides to make that idea a reality.

look at public school teachers: a lot of data suggests that men represent a mere 20% of teachers in the United States. are we going to complain about the "injustice" of not enough men being teachers? why aren't we actively trying to convince more men to become teachers?

could it be that becoming a teacher means that you will be taking on a low-status, low-paying, and life-consuming job that was historically done by parents, private tutors, and religious organizations for most of human history? in the case of teachers there isn't any sort of barrier towards men pursuing a career in public education. and yet, the VAST majority of public teachers are women. most modern men don't even consider becoming teachers for a lot of pretty compelling personal and cultural reasons.

would I be pleased if we got more diversity, equity, and inclusiveness? yes... but, in some scenarios, this will simply never happen.

I will never expect to see manual laborers to be equally male and female. if a woman wants to spend ALL DAY throwing 60-pound boxes out of a hand-stacked box truck or hanging drywall... she's more than welcome to do that. but most women don't WANT to do that. hell, most men don't want to do that either.

being a director is a really difficult and time-consuming job for ambitious, bossy, visionary person with good management skills. sometimes even experienced Hollywood actors and writers try tackling directing and find... that it just doesn't suit them as well as they would have liked.

gender certainly plays a role in fewer women becoming film directors. but it is just one of many factors.

I've read three or four articles in the last month about people bemoaning minority women of color CEOs retiring with millions of dollars and not leaving behind any BIPOC people to replace them as CEOs.

I find myself thinking... why should these women keep working just to satisfy a quota if they've already gotten what they wanted from the experience? if these women earned millions of dollars, got what they wanted out of a profitable business experience, and decided to sell the company and settle down to enjoy life... more power to them! is their crime not properly finding and grooming a suitable BIPOC replacement? I applaud their decision to get out of the Rat Race and have fun. a lot of men wouldn't have the good sense to do that.

we can talk about gender, inequality, and all that... and that's a worthwhile conversation. but the reality is that not every woman is going to be attracted to the director's chair. still fewer of them will stay there. high levels of attrition and failure seem to be inherent to the career.

[Powerboy]

and yet... I don't recall Mister Mets ever saying otherwise. did I miss something?

the idea that every industry needs to reflect the gender or racial demography of the culture is a VERY recent idea. it will take time before culture decides to make that idea a reality.

look at public school teachers: a lot of data suggests that men represent a mere 20% of teachers in the United States. are we going to complain about the "injustice" of not enough men being teachers? why aren't we actively trying to convince more men to become teachers?

could it be that becoming a teacher means that you will be taking on a low-status, low-paying, and life-consuming job that was historically done by parents, private tutors, and religious organizations for most of human history? in the case of teachers there isn't any sort of barrier towards men pursuing a career in public education. and yet, the VAST majority of public teachers are women. most modern men don't even consider becoming teachers for a lot of pretty compelling personal and cultural reasons.

would I be pleased if we got more diversity, equity, and inclusiveness? yes... but, in some scenarios, this will simply never happen.

I will never expect to see manual laborers to be equally male and female. if a woman wants to spend ALL DAY throwing 60-pound boxes out of a hand-stacked box truck or hanging drywall... she's more than welcome to do that. but most women don't WANT to do that. hell, most men don't want to do that either.

being a director is a really difficult and time-consuming job for ambitious, bossy, visionary person with good management skills. sometimes even experienced Hollywood actors and writers try tackling directing and find... that it just doesn't suit them as well as they would have liked.

gender certainly plays a role in fewer women becoming film directors. but it is just one of many factors.

I've read three or four articles in the last month about people bemoaning minority women of color CEOs retiring with millions of dollars and not leaving behind any BIPOC people to replace them as CEOs.

I find myself thinking... why should these women keep working just to satisfy a quota if they've already gotten what they wanted from the experience? if these women earned millions of dollars, got what they wanted out of a profitable business experience, and decided to sell the company and settle down to enjoy life... more power to them! is their crime not properly finding and grooming a suitable BIPOC replacement? I applaud their decision to get out of the Rat Race and have fun. a lot of men wouldn't have the good sense to do that.

we can talk about gender, inequality, and all that... and that's a worthwhile conversation. but the reality is that not every woman is going to be attracted to the director's chair. still fewer of them will stay there. high levels of attrition and failure seem to be inherent to the career.

There's an interesting argument that when women do become highly successful in business, to the point of making millions, they reach a point where they ask themselves why they need to go on with this when they never need to work another day in their lives. So they stop and focus on their personal lives or enjoying themselves in general. Men are more likely to keep going because they see it as evidence of their own worth and meaningful in itself even when they don't financially need it anymore.

As to teaching, I wanted to teach in grade school, work with younger kids. Nobody wanted to hire me for that. They wanted me in high school and, sometimes, in the classes with the most troubled and violent students. One person said, and I quote, "We don't need you in grade school. We have women who can teach there."

It was not just once. I quit and found other employment. A couple of years later, a school called me and asked if I was interested in coming back. I asked if they has anything teaching grade school. The person said that, no, they did not BUT they had this class for students who had been kicked out of school and this was their last chance before reform school. There was even that remark that they needed a man for this job- sexist against both men and women.

Plus, grade school is really teaching, in my opinion. High school is mostly baby sitting, especially with the lawsuit mentality we're in so that teachers and faculty generally have no control and the high school kids know it. Most people who might once have become good teachers just don't want to "teach" under these conditions so they pursue other careers, especially if they know their most likely teaching job is going to be in the morass that is teaching high school.

On your point about menial labor, most women don't want to do it, in my opinion. Most men don't either but, sometimes, you've got to take what will pay the bills. Women can more easily find employment in jobs men can't get into and so men take those types of hard physical labor jobs. Also, honestly, just about every study shows women average about 55-65% percent of the strength of the average man and about two-thirds the stamina. So it's understandable they shy away from such jobs, plus there's almost certainly a lot of harassment they would face in such jobs. But men do almost all of the outdoor work and hard labor jobs that women rarely apply for.

So, I agree that 14% of movie directors being women is not proof of some systemic and intentional plot to keep women out of that profession. Oh, I believe there is sexism involved, absolutely. But it's not the entirety of it. The cultural attitudes we are seeing now that every profession has to have equal representation, even when, in many cases, people of one sex or the other, have far less interest in certain professions, is relatively new. It does indeed take time to change the structure of society and, sometimes, there's a tendency to force people to fill certain roles whether they want to or not. It's always been that way except that now, instead of the "Dick and Jane" readers telling girls they are meant to be housewives and homemakers, moms, and nothing else, it's just a different kind of social conditioning.

[Aahz]

There are directors who have not been ruined by their box office bombs. For example, James Cameron started his directorial debut with a box office bomb. That's right, his first movie was a bomb. Anyone would have thought he would have quit the directorial career after the film bomb. But it is a good thing he did not. Two years later, he directed a more successful and more famous film called The Terminator.

That was a low budged movie with, with according to wikipeadia a budget of only ~146k Dollar, that's simply not enough money to ruin a career.

[Aahz]

The cultural attitudes we are seeing now that every profession has to have equal representation, even when, in many cases, people of one sex or the other, have far less interest in certain professions, is relatively new.

I mean that's eve something you can see in every day life, when I look at the company I'm working for the percentage of men and women, varies wildly from department to department with extremes in both directions.

[Jim Kelly]

Both Shatner and Akroyd at least have fair share of writing; although I'm pretty sure Shatner is more of an ideas guy and gets help and ghostwriters (The Reeves-Stevens I think) with at least his Trek stuff.

Akroyd of course wrote Ghostbusters, although I think a lot of his more extreme ideas were tempered by Ramis's input.

Weird that these Canadians don't get the credit they deserve. William Shatner did a fair amount of television directing. I feel like some credits are missing for Dan Aykroyd. His brother, Peter, gets the credit for co-creating PSI FACTOR (which was made in Canada), but Dan only gets credit for being the host--when I feel like he must've been involved a lot in the production (it's the kind of stuff he obsesses about). He must have been a silent producer--which would have allowed him to direct a few episodes, if he wanted.

I don't think either Bill Shatner or Dan Aykroyd have done so little directing because they were forced out. They both had the power--at least in television production and certainly in Canada--to do more if they wanted. They just didn't want.

[Maestro 216]

Fan4stick ruined Josh Trank.

[ChrisIII]

Bill also directed well-received documentaries on the other Star Trek Captains (Minus the current ones as the movie is over a decade old of course) and TNG's early years which had a lot of production problems.


Think I mentioned earlier that V also suffered from a lot of bad timing, with a writer's strike and ILM being too busy affecting the script and effects. Even then the film has some pretty good Kirk/Spocky/McCoy stuff, the whole "secret pain" scene is a standout, and the soundtrack is among Trek's best (Goldsmith used a few of the themes for the last three TNG Films, apart from the already established main theme and Klingon music).

[chicago_bastard]

Who do you mean? Zack Snyder?

Yes. Still weird that WB thought it would be a good idea to give the supervision over the DCEU to a director coming off three back to back theatrical flops.

Fan4stick ruined Josh Trank.

Or maybe: Josh Trank ruined the Fantastic Four brand.

I don't think a guy who still got an atrocity like Capone financed has a reason to complain.

[Jackalope89]

I can't corroborate it personally, but, Maxwell Caulfield was an apparent up and comer, similar to John Travolta before him, and hence why he got the male lead in Grease 2.

But Grease 2 was such a cluster f*** in general. Like the actual script wasn't even done by the time shooting started. Its why Frenchy simply vanishes halfway through (I even checked this part myself). Really, only Michelle Pfiefer's career kept rising after this disaster. But her fellow lead went the opposite.

[Kirby101]

I can't corroborate it personally, but, Maxwell Caulfield was an apparent up and comer, similar to John Travolta before him, and hence why he got the male lead in Grease 2.

But Grease 2 was such a cluster f*** in general. Like the actual script wasn't even done by the time shooting started. Its why Frenchy simply vanishes halfway through (I even checked this part myself). Really, only Michelle Pfiefer's career kept rising after this disaster. But her fellow lead went the opposite.

A lot of up and comers never reach big stardom, but the guy has worked consistently for 4 decades, including two long run series. He has also appeared in many Broadway and West End plays.

[Totoro Man]

"You just can't get that kind of ratio in any natural way."

I think I realized what bothered me so much... the implicit and generic appeal to "Nature" as the basis for some sort of desired change. it's been done so often for terrible arguments in the past.

here's an example from Erika Mann's "School for Barbarians":

Professor Ernst Bergmann of Leipzig says, in an essay called "Knowledge and the Spirit of Motherhood":

'Life-long monogamy is perverse and would prove harmful to our race. Were this institution every really enforced -- and fortunately this is almost never the case in reality -- the race must decay. Every reasonably constructed State will have to regard a woman who has not given birth as dishonored. There are plenty of willing and qualified youths ready to unit with the girls and women on hand. Fortunately, one boy of good race suffices for twenty girls. And the girls, for their part, would gladly fulfill the demand for children, were it not for the nonsensical so-called civilized ideas of the monogamous permanent marriage, an idea in complete contradiction to all natural facts."

Here we have a Nazi making an impassioned appeal to readers that the world would be better off if humanity acted more in line with "nature". he simply invokes "natural facts" as if there were no reasonable counterargument to be made.

I would argue that not everything natural is "good".

male bears will kill bear cubs in order to mate with the female caring for them. other animals will devour their own offspring for the sake of convenience. goats, to pick yet another example, will have sex with their own parents and siblings when the opportunity presents itself.

these and many, MANY other behaviors that would be considered a "natural fact" are rightly condemned as reprehensible if manifested in human behavior. I dislike generic appeals to nature. there must be at least SOME specificity involved!

as for the 14% of directors being women and natural ratios:
LOL! I will make hypocritically make an appeal to "Nature"! ;-)

I believe that cultural evolution is best when it takes place incrementally and in an 'organic' fashion... like biological evolution. a new species doesn't simply appear overnight. and not every change will succeed.
eventually, however, a new species does evolve. in the same manner - it will take many years before we see a significant change in how many women are represented in the pool of Hollywood directors. I am not arguing that things should never change [because if I don't write out those words somebody will inevitably accuse me of that!]

another lingering frustration I have about the pursuit of diversity and representation is this-- to paraphrase Adolf Reed Jr: "having a more diverse set of board members at Goldman Sachs doesn't mean that they will suddenly stop being capitalist exploiters." I'm not convinced that having different people at the top will make the world a better place. I'm old enough to remember how much people hated Margaret Thatcher. just having diversity and women in positions of power doesn't automatically make things better!

[choptop]

Fan4stick ruined Josh Trank.

He did one move 5 yers after that Capone I wouldn't call that ruined he wasn't even that big a deal before 2015...

[choptop]

There are directors who have not been ruined by their box office bombs. For example, James Cameron started his directorial debut with a box office bomb. That's right, his first movie was a bomb. Anyone would have thought he would have quit the directorial career after the film bomb. But it is a good thing he did not. Two years later, he directed a more successful and more famous film called The Terminator.

Why would JC quit after Piranha II? Do you really think he thought it was going to be a huge hit? It's a movie almost no one saw and almost no one herd of before 1984 and probably people only no of it now because of the internet now that I think about it was it even really a bomb? It didn't cost much I'm sure it at least made its money back on the home video market.