When does a director's name make them a cautious choice based on their track record?

[Binker]

"Even the greatest director can make a bad movie," that quote is true, but sometimes either the director's name is that popular, or it is just that much of a disbelief that that one person can find work. Let's use two examples of opposite ends of the spectrum, with one in the middle: Zack Synder has directed a number of films, starting with a remake of Dawn of the Dead that might've been panned but wasn't, and same goes for any of his other movies that have received popular or praisement, with only one exception and that was Sucker Punch. The other end is M. Night Shyamalan with two successes, and the rest are either negativally reviewed or panned, and yet finds work. The one I chose for the middle is Bryan Singer, who has done Usual Suspects, X-Men, X2, and currently X-Men: Days of Future Past; but, his current track record has been mixed, starting with Superman Returns, Valkyrie, and Jack and the Giant Killer, making me cautious of him directing what might be a hit film, but I've been wrong before.

The point is, as the topic is asking: at what point does a director's track-record make him a cautious/negative choice to film a movie? Your thoughts?

 

[<(o_o)>]

Regardless of talent it's not always the director's fault that a movie tanks at the box-office, the story & popularity of the material that the movie is about also has everything to do with how successful or unsuccessful a movie is.

Is it more the studios or movie producers that choose the director of the movie? Although some directors have proven themselves time & time again that they can make a good movie with the right material not every movie can consecutively be good/successful all the time & if the studios/movie producers deemed these director's work as complete crap then they should be looking upon them with cautious eyes each time that they hire them to direct their movies.

 

[Donnie Darko]

Joel Schumacher still gets hate for his Batman movies, but his good movies far outweigh his bad ones, IMO. People will probably always associate him with the Batman movies, though.

 

[chaseter]

Uwe Boll
M. Night Shaymalan
Michael Bay
Brett Ratner

Those 4 make a bad movie about 90% of the time.

 

[Warhammer]

I completely forgot about Uwe Boll. Man, he was the butt-end of all my movie jokes back in the day.

 

[Drizzle]

M. Night Shaymalan is done. After Earth is just the nail in the coffin, and this guy has been on a collision course since 2004, if not earlier. When a packed theater groans when your name pops up in a trailer, you know people are tired of your ****. You fail that many times, there's no coming back from that. Say what you will about Michael Bay, but at least his bad movies are hits.

 

[Warhammer]

There were only two times in my life that I remember an audience having a bad reaction to a name popping on the screen. The first time was when the whole theater laughed on the Blood & Chocolate trailer. The second is the Devil trailer. My whole theater either groaned or laughed at Shyamalan.

 

[Polaris23]

"Even the greatest director can make a bad movie," that quote is true, but sometimes either the director's name is that popular, or it is just that much of a disbelief that that one person can find work. Let's use two examples of opposite ends of the spectrum, with one in the middle: Zack Synder has directed a number of films, starting with a remake of Dawn of the Dead that might've been panned but wasn't, and same goes for any of his other movies that have received popular or praisement, with only one exception and that was Sucker Punch. The other end is M. Night Shyamalan with two successes, and the rest are either negativally reviewed or panned, and yet finds work. The one I chose for the middle is Bryan Singer, who has done Usual Suspects, X-Men, X2, and currently X-Men: Days of Future Past; but, his current track record has been mixed, starting with Superman Returns, Valkyrie, and Jack and the Giant Killer, making me cautious of him directing what might be a hit film, but I've been wrong before.

The point is, as the topic is asking: at what point does a director's track-record make him a cautious/negative choice to film a movie? Your thoughts?

First of all, M. Night should not be on the opposite end of the spectrum. Sure, he's made some bad movies recently (like every other director) but his first 4 features were magnificent. Even though The Village was slammed, it was a beautiful, fantastic film that was simply badly marketed as a horror film so naturally people were disappointed. This is nothing against M. Night, it's the studio's own fault. Night had 4 great hits in a row and that earns him a spot on my top 10 favourite directors of all time.

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

I think the screen-writers and actors are of (at least) equal importance. Bad directors don't usually turn good movies into bad movies (although it does happen). Rather, bad projects attract bad directors.

And M Night needs to retire. I honestly don't understand how he keeps landing multi-million dollar films with all-star casts when he's made successive duds since Signs... more than a decade ago!

 

[JJJ's Ulcer]

First of all, M. Night should not be on the opposite end of the spectrum. Sure, he's made some bad movies recently (like every other director) but his first 4 features were magnificent. Even though The Village was slammed, it was a beautiful, fantastic film that was simply badly marketed as a horror film so naturally people were disappointed. This is nothing against M. Night, it's the studio's own fault. Night had 4 great hits in a row and that earns him a spot on my top 10 favourite directors of all time.

Signs was okay, but the twist was terrible and silly and it did fall apart by the end. The Village had an interesting premise, but the less said about the last hour the better. Now even giving M Night the benefit of the doubt and saying the Village was good (which almost everyone would disagree with), he's still made Lady in the Water, the Happening, the Last Airbender and After Earth since then, which are all varying degrees of terrible. He definitely deserves to get slammed. The studios keep expecting him to make another Sixth Sense or even an Unbreakable, and he doesn't have it in him.

 

[Donnie Darko]

I still don't rally get the Michael Bay hate. If you can't find something to like about The Rock, Armageddon, either Bad Boys movies, or the first Transformers, then I feel like you are someone I would never take movie advice from. I understand not liking the Transformers sequels, and I wasn't big on The Island, but if you don't like any of those other movies (you don't have to like them all, but at least one or two of them), then you have forgotten that sometimes you are supposed to actually have fun watching movies.

 

[Thundercrack85]

I agree, as much as I hate what the man has done to Transformers, he's not in the same league as people like M. Night Shymalan.

I mean, his movies are dumb, loud, full of plot holes and at times racist, but obviously he's doing something right.

 

[Thundercrack85]

First of all, M. Night should not be on the opposite end of the spectrum. Sure, he's made some bad movies recently (like every other director) but his first 4 features were magnificent. Even though The Village was slammed, it was a beautiful, fantastic film that was simply badly marketed as a horror film so naturally people were disappointed. This is nothing against M. Night, it's the studio's own fault. Night had 4 great hits in a row and that earns him a spot on my top 10 favourite directors of all time.

I'm sorry but Airbender would automatically cancel out even the greatest movie of all time. And then there's the Happening. And now, After Earth.

And the Village wasn't even good.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

Polaris, Shamalyan is on the opposite end of that spectrum whether you like him or not. I'll give you Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs (even though I dislike the latter two). He's still made 5 consecutive movies that were panned by critics and audiences alike, to the point that studios do not want to use his name in advertising. It's embarrassing, to be honest.

And with Michael Bay, audiences still like his movies. Despite what the internet says, for most part people like his movies, even the terrible Transformers sequels (even though I loved the first Transformers).

 

[Sawyer]

Idiotic sense of humor aside, at least Bay's movies are entertaining. Shyamalan... not so much.

 

[Mrs. Sawyer]

And that's the only glaring problem with Bay's movies. He tends to go overboard with his sense of humor.

At least Bay is capable of making a movie under budget, and on time with efficiency while being pretty good on the technical side. He knows how to frame exciting action sequences where Shamalyan doesn't.

One example is in The Last Airbender. When the Earth Benders are battling the Fire Nation, he tries to film it all in one take and he completely fails at making it exciting and making it look good. In fact, if anyone watches that scene again, you notice a lot of people just standing around doing nothing.

At least Bay's actions scenes, though more on the overindulgent side, has things happening and doesn't have inactivity and tends to be very kinetic.

 

[Warhammer]

Bay isn't going anywhere for a long time. His films simply make too much money.

 

[Thundercrack85]

You forgot the glaring plot holes, so huge even the average moviegoer sometimes points them out.

 

[Soapy]

I don't know if the question is meant to be answered from a studio exec point of view or from that of a fan, but for me personally, it's as simple as a director having a string of misses. Either that or I'm just not into their style.

 

[Soapy]

At least Bay is capable of making a movie under budget, and on time with efficiency while being pretty good on the technical side.

Exactly. Nothing gets me more fired up to see a movie than when the director is both frugal AND punctual. **** yeah!

 

[Liam_H]

I still don't rally get the Michael Bay hate. If you can't find something to like about The Rock, Armageddon, either Bad Boys movies, or the first Transformers, then I feel like you are someone I would never take movie advice from. I understand not liking the Transformers sequels, and I wasn't big on The Island, but if you don't like any of those other movies (you don't have to like them all, but at least one or two of them), then you have forgotten that sometimes you are supposed to actually have fun watching movies.

Armageddon is fun to to an extent. Only like the first Bad Boys, the 2nd was when Bay started to let himself delve deeper into what are the Transformers sequel.

I absolutely love The Rock. I wish he would stop with Transformers and go back to making action movies of that type. But that was nearly two decades ago so when I think of him now TF2 is what pops into my mind.

 

[Spider-Aziz]

When he makes only $#%^
I hate all of Michael Bay's films (The Rock is an exception)

 

[redhawk23]

First of all, M. Night should not be on the opposite end of the spectrum. Sure, he's made some bad movies recently (like every other director) but his first 4 features were magnificent. Even though The Village was slammed, it was a beautiful, fantastic film that was simply badly marketed as a horror film so naturally people were disappointed. This is nothing against M. Night, it's the studio's own fault. Night had 4 great hits in a row and that earns him a spot on my top 10 favourite directors of all time.

Recently? He's had a decade out of a 14 year career of pretty terrible movies.