Tom Rothman, is the current is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Fox Filmed Entertainment, the parent company of Twentieth Century Fox. Everywhere I go on the internet, when this guy is mentioned, it's always in a very negative light. For instance, under Rothman's watch, Fox's movies (particularly their summer blockbusters) are mandated to not run under two hours in order to fit in more theater showings (thus automatically guaranteeing more money).
Things that Fox under Tom Rothman's eye has been bashed for (as far as I know):
*Editing "Die Hard 4" to make it a PG-13 film even though the previous three, had been R-rated. This pretty much meant that Bruce Willis couldn't say John McClaine's trademark "Yippie-ki-ya, mother ****er!" line as it was fully intended.
*The mismanagement of the production for "X-Men 3". For instance:
**Not waiting for Bryan Singer to finish working on "Superman Returns", and not having a replacement director until I believe weeks before filming was due to start. And when a director is finally hired, it's Brett Ratner, who has grown a reputation for being a hack, *****bag, MTV music video, action director.
**Not waiting for several actors (e.g. James Marsden, Rebecca Romjin, and Anna Paquin) to take care of prior engagements before filming. For in the process, certain characters were "killed off" as a matter of convinence.
**Seemingly rushing the production as means of retailiating against Bryan Singer for heading off to make "Superman Returns" (which also opened in the summer of 2006).
**Tom Rothman also allegedly didn't want Sentinels (the gigantic, mutant hunting robots) appearing in an X-Men film because he believed that audiences would immediately think that giant robots appearing in live-action would be too "silly". This was of course, before "Transformers" (a movie for which Tom Rothman allegedly turned down) came out.
*Ordering Ridley Scott to edit his movie "Kingdom of Heaven" to make it look like a more formulaic action-adventure film, when Scott intended for it to be much deeper.
*Having "Daredevil" edited to make it appear more like a summer blockbuster (i.e. more CGI) in the mode of "Spider-Man". "Daredevil" was initially conceived as a more violent, R-rated film in the mold of Frank Miller's run with the comics.
*Not giving the "Fantastic Four" films a better budget, to go along with hirining Tim Story (who is primarily known as a comedic director rather than a sci-fi, action-adventure director) and aiming for a campy, cookie-cutter, sitcomy feel. Rothman also allegedly thought that it would be better for us to see Galactus as a cloud.
*Trashing plans for an "ID4" sequel.
*Browbeating "LXG" director Stephen Norrington until he quit the business altogether. Rothman also allegedly almost convinced "I, Robot" director Alex Proyas to give up filmmaking.
