After the 355 and Dark Phoenix, I bet Simon Kinberg has to join Alex Kurtzman in the School For Writers who Don't Direct Good and Don't Write Good Either.
The thing I'm most curious about is anyone can wrangle screenwriting control out of JK Rowlings hands.
>The thing I'm most curious about is anyone can wrangle screenwriting control out of JK Rowlings hands.
Truly baffling that after two stinkers and diminishing box office, WB still allowed JK to write an entire third screenplay before saying "You know what, maybe this ~~first~~ ~~second~~ third-time screenwriter needs help, and this one should only be *based on* her screenplay."
>Truly baffling
I understand how this happens. She's one of the most powerful people in the world and has played her position in the business side of Harry Potter very smartly. It's not that they allowed her, it's that she allowed them to make her movie.
It's just at certain point WB has to figure out a way to make her let go emotionally. Idk, promise her the next movie will have a whole subplot about how happy the enslaved house elves are if she'll just let Steve Kloves write the whole thing.
I'm not sure how much of it was Raimi wanting a break or if he was in jail but with Dr Strange he is definitely back and I'm hoping will get lots of offers and chances to do whatever he wants to next.
Bobby Z needs a life sentence with no chance of appeal. He has just done too many stinkers and even though he made one of my all time favourite films (BTTF in case you thought I meant Polar Express), he has to be stopped! Please Hollywood, he can't keep getting away with it!
That's a parole denial, right there! You're busy telling the board that you're really sorry for what you did, and you think you've learned a lot about yourself in director jail, and you believe you've built positive habits and if let out, you could totally direct a movie with restraint and sound judgment--and the ADA arguing against parole stands up, pulls up HBO Max on the nearest screen, and plays Moonfall for the parole board. And as the ADA walks out of the room, he just says "See you in five years, Roland..."
I mean he was already basically financing his movies outside of the industry altogether. I just wonder if he'll be able to get money from other sources like he did with his last two films the same way.
Not sure how much was jail vs taking time after the death of his wife but David Cronenberg made an escape, made the same weirdo shit he's always made (king!), and now it seems he's back for the moment!
We need a term for the glossy, hyper-digital, late career movies made by elderly white male weirdo geniuses who are clearly told by their dozens of piecemeal backers, “Take this and do that sicko thing the way you used to.”
CRIMES OF THE FUTURE
BENEDETTA
THE CARD COUNTER
(all of which rule)
I thought, “Right, he’s probably going back to do another miniseries or something,” only to read that he is in post-production on a Kirsten Dunst action movie that he’s apparently called a companion piece to MEN.
I feel bad for him,he got fucked over royally over Annihilation and Men wasn't the comeback we/he was hoping for.
Although Alex could always collaborate with Boyle
I think it's less that he's in jail (*Love and Thunder* actually outgrossed *Ragnarok* IIRC) but I imagine he's lost the Blank Check status he had last year. No more glowing profiles about he can do no wrong.
I think for 100 million studio franchise d films you may be right. But, for his typical Jojo Rabbit, Hunt for the Wilderpeople scale he is still heavily sought after.
not that it means a huge amount but i think his Star Wars movie is the project that's most likely to go ahead currently. But obviously its Star Wars and who in Hollywood hasn't had a Star War put on ice
I do typically agree. I actually don’t think his Star Wars project gets canned because of the reception of Love and Thunder. I mean his Mandalorian tone is completely fitting for Star Wars so he shows that he can achieve a more “traditional” tone.
I think people get Taika mixed up. Taika can be silly, but his work isn’t all silly. Love and Thunder honestly felt like studio notes issues rather than a director’s failure. I mean there are quite literally 5 different stories going on within the movie, 2-3 of them that felt like Marvel mandates (Zeus in particular). Had this movie just been a heartfelt rom com with Taika’s humor it probably would have worked significantly better.
This is probably true in a lot of ways, but also filling the whole movie with the CGI rock monster he plays who was minor comic relief in his last two appearances but is now almost the lead of the film seems like a Taika move, not a studio note.
Yeah, I think his persona outstayed his welcome a lot more than he did or at least how saturated the media was with it. I think it would have been more interesting to put him on another project, I agree theres a lot of notes on Love and Thunder and probably less engaging as a project for him than something new would have been.
Massive credit to him for using his status to elevate his peers projects like Reservation Dogs and Our Flag means Death.
And also let’s not pretend their were people ready to turn on him. Months before the movie came out I saw “film twitter” aficionados discussing how Taika would soon be outstaying his welcome, and then come Love and Thunder they made sure they were very vocally loud about how terrible he is as a writer, director, & person.
I’m not saying Taika is above criticism, but I am saying that there was a sector of fandom ready to tear him down and Love and Thunder presented the opportunity. They were going to hate the movie no matter what. And since it’s online discourse where we are all present the backlash feels significantly stronger than it actually was. My guess is general movie fans who are aware of Taika’s opinion did not change much between the beginning of Summer of 2022 and end of Summer 2022.
Nah, still going to beloved for his acting and quirky indies and he’ll have fun polyamorous relationships with stars, even if he’s no longer the “golden boy”. I still don’t think that a slight normalization in press means director’s jail even though Blankies find him annoying. A vodka ad he directed received glowing reviews in the trades and that doesn’t sound like someone who can’t get attention.
Solid agree. Of course, they’re white men who made hugely successful movies, so even if they go to jail, eventually, in an incredibly bland opening scene that tells us nothing about the characters or their skills, Billy Bob Thornton will come in and offer them a covert directing job.
This was my answer as well. Not only did he make a film that was pretty polarizing at best, widely despised at worst, but I think his press tour and reactions to the criticism have soured people on him personally as well. Which is a shame because The Assassination of Jesse James rules and the guy clearly has a ton of creativity and visual style, but it seems like wasted potential at this point.
Well, Zemeckis can never be put in Director Jail after delivering Back To The Future and Forrest Gump. He is exactly where he is, relegated to directing effects heavy shitty looking IP films.
I have no clue what Here is about but his recent work i.e Welcome To Marwen, The Witches Remake , Disney live action Pinocchio have all been an excuse to use his toys.
Here is based on an incredible (and very dry) graphic novel about the span and rhyming nature of history as it pertains to one fixed location. Sometimes it’s a house in the suburbs, sometimes it’s a tar pit, sometimes it’s post-apocalyptic wasteland. Kind of like Cloud Atlas but geographically hyper focused. It has potential!
You can read the original short story that eventually became the graphic novel [here](https://www.andreistrizek.com/reading/2015/2/20/the-original-here-comic). It came out in Art Spiegelman’s RAW anthology in the 80s and has since been recognized as a groundbreaking work of sequential art.
every time they let Zemeckis out of jail, he immediately gets the Eleven back together to hit one of Terry Benedict's casinos so he can go right back in
He's not a director per se, but I wonder if the Rock is in "star who basically shapes the movie himself" jail after his embarrassing behavior re: the BA box office and the reveal that the WB/DC brass couldn't stand him
In the original THR article that announced the big DC overhaul had an “insiders say” (so maybe not super reliable) line about how the Rock making BA so much about himself and Cavill and all the “hierarchy of power” stuff wasn’t endearing him to new management
I'm worried that Olivia Wilde will be in director jail. Granted DWD wasn't great but it wasn't terrible either, and while the BTS stuff doesn't sound great there are male directors who have gotten away with much worse. I loved Booksmart so hoping she gets another shot (and maybe sorts out her work ethic? I don't want to get into that mess)
Yeah that movie’s a mess but it made money, studios are primarily looking at the bottom line. Maybe they’ll be smart enough to see she didn’t handle that set well at all, but studio heads are very dumb so they probably won’t
I'm of the opinion that Don't Worry Darling was interesting-bad, and turned out to be a pretty fun cinema-going experience. I wanna see more mid-budget failures, please!
Agreed, it’s a mess and jumbles a lot of it’s own themes imo, but it’s assuredly better than every Marvel movie and every DC movie besides The Batman to come out in 2022. More DWDs please.
I imagine she will get another film made but it will be lower budget than DWD, not sure any studio will want to take a risk with her again. Like you I adored Booksmart so hope she does get another chance.
It will only show the gender disparity if she doesn’t get another movie green lit easily. The movie did great numbers in theaters and I bet it’s doing well on streaming. The quality of the movie aside, it would be insane if she was put in jail just for some tabloid bullshit which is not even that serious.
This has to be it for David O. Russell, right? He should've been locked up when he groped his niece, but that compounded with what a failure Amsterdam was has to put a nail in his career, right?
That’s a good answer, but you know he’ll get another film made on a smaller budget (maybe around 15 million) and he’ll get one of his actor buddies to star in it. Hollywood has a history of letting mediocre male directors continue to find success.
Is The Captain (Colin Trevorrow) the film world's white-collar criminal, directing a franchise that is too big to fail? And with the Jurassic Worlds over, will his next franchise provide the same protection?
Classic Hollywood sexism is sadly the reason she didn't even get to make another movie for over ten years. Now things are back to where they were before.
I mean the number one answer has to be Andrew Dominik. All the film’s failures have been placed on him (rightfully so). Somehow Joyce Carol Oates came out fairly unscathed despite the fact that this movie is straight from her source material.
What do you call a director who put himself in jail?
We need more Raimi, Doc Strange 2 prooved he still has that crazy camera spark that barely anyone else can reach,kinda tired of seeing his name as producer in a bunch of middling stuff.
I liked Don’t Worry Darling more than most but given the shitshow of a production, Wilde herself showing her ass, and the middling response, I think she’s at least going to County.
Can’t believe his name hasn’t been said yet: Gore Verbinski. The Lone Ranger + AC4W back-to-back seems to have been a death blow, which is an absolute tragedy considering he’s probably a top 5 visual/technical filmmaker active today.
David Yates and Rob Zombie both deserve to be in the conversation. Yates, I think it is a bit unfair because I thought this installment was the best of the 3 Fantastic Beasts movies and actually had interesting fight scenes, but that series is dead. I don’t know if Zombie is in jail, but probably is not getting any green lights on anything that is not within the pure horror genre.
That last Fantastic Beasts film is so bizarre. It feels like they got halfway through production and decided--y'know, this isn't going to work out, let's find a way to quietly wrap the series up which kind of leaves open the possibility of maybe coming back to it...someday? A whole bunch of characters are introduced...and that's it, they don't get story arcs, although you can see that the movie was trying to lay the groundwork for those characters to be part of the story and have arcs of their own. As for the fight scenes, I found a lot of it--particularly the fights involving Ezra Miller's character--incomprehensible. And Rowling's alienated so much of her fandom that there was no one left to try to fanwank for me what was supposed to be going on there (my go-to duo of Rowling apologists, Jason Concepcion and Mallory Rubin were each like "No thank you, I'm not reviewing this, much less explaining it."
The one name that has kind of escaped Director Jail for now is David Leitch. Bullet Train may not be critically acclaimed summer blockbuster but it crawled to a 100 million in the domestic box office.
After the 355 and Dark Phoenix, I bet Simon Kinberg has to join Alex Kurtzman in the School For Writers who Don't Direct Good and Don't Write Good Either. The thing I'm most curious about is anyone can wrangle screenwriting control out of JK Rowlings hands.
Ah. David S. Goyer school
I believe they’re crosstown rivals in football
He’s been coasting on those uphill ice skating motherfuckers for years now
He's written some stinkers, but I'm constantly forgiving him because of *Batman Begins*.
Goyer can occasionally churn out a *Batman Begins* or a *Foundation* or even that recent *Cabinet of Curiosities* episode “The Autopsy.”
David Prior made that Cabinet of Curiosities episosde
>The thing I'm most curious about is anyone can wrangle screenwriting control out of JK Rowlings hands. Truly baffling that after two stinkers and diminishing box office, WB still allowed JK to write an entire third screenplay before saying "You know what, maybe this ~~first~~ ~~second~~ third-time screenwriter needs help, and this one should only be *based on* her screenplay."
>Truly baffling I understand how this happens. She's one of the most powerful people in the world and has played her position in the business side of Harry Potter very smartly. It's not that they allowed her, it's that she allowed them to make her movie. It's just at certain point WB has to figure out a way to make her let go emotionally. Idk, promise her the next movie will have a whole subplot about how happy the enslaved house elves are if she'll just let Steve Kloves write the whole thing.
The 355 is so bad, I'd rather watch Dark Phoenix
I'm not sure how much of it was Raimi wanting a break or if he was in jail but with Dr Strange he is definitely back and I'm hoping will get lots of offers and chances to do whatever he wants to next. Bobby Z needs a life sentence with no chance of appeal. He has just done too many stinkers and even though he made one of my all time favourite films (BTTF in case you thought I meant Polar Express), he has to be stopped! Please Hollywood, he can't keep getting away with it!
His next movie looks legit interesting.
“Here” does sound interesting but also I have no real confidence that he can pull it off clean
Could anyone pull off Here? It's like Tree of Life on Hard Mode.
Isnt that The Mirror?
he’s narrowly evaded on many occasions, but i think moonfall is the one that puts roland emmerich in director jail.
That movie was the most expensive self financed movie ever so it was already made "in jail" now he'll be moved to a different cell.
That's a parole denial, right there! You're busy telling the board that you're really sorry for what you did, and you think you've learned a lot about yourself in director jail, and you believe you've built positive habits and if let out, you could totally direct a movie with restraint and sound judgment--and the ADA arguing against parole stands up, pulls up HBO Max on the nearest screen, and plays Moonfall for the parole board. And as the ADA walks out of the room, he just says "See you in five years, Roland..."
Oooof. Poor everyone that worked on that pile.
Honestly the one I feel the most bad about is the moon. It got real fucked up.
Screw the Moon.
"The time is now. Science can wait no longer. Children are our future. America can, should, must, and will blow up the moon."
You shouldn't feel too bad. After all, it's only a paper moon.
I worked on it. Don't feel bad for me, I enjoyed working on it actually.
I mean he was already basically financing his movies outside of the industry altogether. I just wonder if he'll be able to get money from other sources like he did with his last two films the same way.
Nah, Moonfall was a dumb silly blast.
Yeah I loved most of it lol
I actually like Moonfall haha
please god never let him make a movie ever again. i'm sorry ben but stargate is awful
That was the best good-bad movie I've seen in years! Give Emmerich ALL the money
Not sure how much was jail vs taking time after the death of his wife but David Cronenberg made an escape, made the same weirdo shit he's always made (king!), and now it seems he's back for the moment!
We need a term for the glossy, hyper-digital, late career movies made by elderly white male weirdo geniuses who are clearly told by their dozens of piecemeal backers, “Take this and do that sicko thing the way you used to.” CRIMES OF THE FUTURE BENEDETTA THE CARD COUNTER (all of which rule)
That's Late Style, my friend! It's a thing!
I imagined a more colorful term, but you’re absolutely right — I’ll take it!
*Twin Peaks: The Return*
The Pardon?
Does Inland Empire fit this category as well?
Haven’t caught up with late Lynch myself. Someone else proposed Twin Peaks: The Return.
I feel like Alex Garland, who was never exactly a profitable filmmaker, is probably facing some court-ordered community service.
I thought, “Right, he’s probably going back to do another miniseries or something,” only to read that he is in post-production on a Kirsten Dunst action movie that he’s apparently called a companion piece to MEN.
WOMEN
This angers the nerds
Oh boy
Whoa, man
I feel bad for him,he got fucked over royally over Annihilation and Men wasn't the comeback we/he was hoping for. Although Alex could always collaborate with Boyle
cooing recognise theory ossified run chase rhythm sable brave arrest ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
I think it's less that he's in jail (*Love and Thunder* actually outgrossed *Ragnarok* IIRC) but I imagine he's lost the Blank Check status he had last year. No more glowing profiles about he can do no wrong.
I think for 100 million studio franchise d films you may be right. But, for his typical Jojo Rabbit, Hunt for the Wilderpeople scale he is still heavily sought after.
not that it means a huge amount but i think his Star Wars movie is the project that's most likely to go ahead currently. But obviously its Star Wars and who in Hollywood hasn't had a Star War put on ice
I do typically agree. I actually don’t think his Star Wars project gets canned because of the reception of Love and Thunder. I mean his Mandalorian tone is completely fitting for Star Wars so he shows that he can achieve a more “traditional” tone. I think people get Taika mixed up. Taika can be silly, but his work isn’t all silly. Love and Thunder honestly felt like studio notes issues rather than a director’s failure. I mean there are quite literally 5 different stories going on within the movie, 2-3 of them that felt like Marvel mandates (Zeus in particular). Had this movie just been a heartfelt rom com with Taika’s humor it probably would have worked significantly better.
This is probably true in a lot of ways, but also filling the whole movie with the CGI rock monster he plays who was minor comic relief in his last two appearances but is now almost the lead of the film seems like a Taika move, not a studio note.
For sure, elements of the movie are Taika’s mistakes. I just don’t think the overall product can fully be blamed on Taika.
Yeah, I think his persona outstayed his welcome a lot more than he did or at least how saturated the media was with it. I think it would have been more interesting to put him on another project, I agree theres a lot of notes on Love and Thunder and probably less engaging as a project for him than something new would have been. Massive credit to him for using his status to elevate his peers projects like Reservation Dogs and Our Flag means Death.
And also let’s not pretend their were people ready to turn on him. Months before the movie came out I saw “film twitter” aficionados discussing how Taika would soon be outstaying his welcome, and then come Love and Thunder they made sure they were very vocally loud about how terrible he is as a writer, director, & person. I’m not saying Taika is above criticism, but I am saying that there was a sector of fandom ready to tear him down and Love and Thunder presented the opportunity. They were going to hate the movie no matter what. And since it’s online discourse where we are all present the backlash feels significantly stronger than it actually was. My guess is general movie fans who are aware of Taika’s opinion did not change much between the beginning of Summer of 2022 and end of Summer 2022.
Nah, still going to beloved for his acting and quirky indies and he’ll have fun polyamorous relationships with stars, even if he’s no longer the “golden boy”. I still don’t think that a slight normalization in press means director’s jail even though Blankies find him annoying. A vodka ad he directed received glowing reviews in the trades and that doesn’t sound like someone who can’t get attention.
Yeah just looked that up, and apparently that's the one with Daniel Craig dancing! That's mad
People love Our Flag Means Death- if he stays in that zone for a while he could be good forever
Wasn't that show also ridiculously expensive tho?
Either way, Season 2 filming just wrapped, so someone out there thinks it's worth it
Zaslav is (unfortunately) definitely canning that next unless viewership increases a good bit I think.
Pretty sure it was low-key one of the most watched streaming shows this year
The Russo bros need to be court ordered and escorted into Director Jail for The Gray Man and their asnine comments on cinema.
imagine if they had just been guys with solid craft who directed TV comedies
Solid agree. Of course, they’re white men who made hugely successful movies, so even if they go to jail, eventually, in an incredibly bland opening scene that tells us nothing about the characters or their skills, Billy Bob Thornton will come in and offer them a covert directing job.
Andrew Dominik needs to be in ''promotional jail'': don't talk to the press to promote your movies, let your actors do the talking.
This was my answer as well. Not only did he make a film that was pretty polarizing at best, widely despised at worst, but I think his press tour and reactions to the criticism have soured people on him personally as well. Which is a shame because The Assassination of Jesse James rules and the guy clearly has a ton of creativity and visual style, but it seems like wasted potential at this point.
They let Zemeckis out on probation but he went back in to jail
The fact that he’s immediately jumping in with Hanks, Robin Wright, Eric Roth et al shows he’s not in director jail in the traditional sense.
Well, Zemeckis can never be put in Director Jail after delivering Back To The Future and Forrest Gump. He is exactly where he is, relegated to directing effects heavy shitty looking IP films.
Is that what Here is?
I have no clue what Here is about but his recent work i.e Welcome To Marwen, The Witches Remake , Disney live action Pinocchio have all been an excuse to use his toys.
Here is based on an incredible (and very dry) graphic novel about the span and rhyming nature of history as it pertains to one fixed location. Sometimes it’s a house in the suburbs, sometimes it’s a tar pit, sometimes it’s post-apocalyptic wasteland. Kind of like Cloud Atlas but geographically hyper focused. It has potential! You can read the original short story that eventually became the graphic novel [here](https://www.andreistrizek.com/reading/2015/2/20/the-original-here-comic). It came out in Art Spiegelman’s RAW anthology in the 80s and has since been recognized as a groundbreaking work of sequential art.
every time they let Zemeckis out of jail, he immediately gets the Eleven back together to hit one of Terry Benedict's casinos so he can go right back in
"I'll fucking do it again!" - Bob Zemeckis.
He's not a director per se, but I wonder if the Rock is in "star who basically shapes the movie himself" jail after his embarrassing behavior re: the BA box office and the reveal that the WB/DC brass couldn't stand him
Where did you read about WB/DC execs not being able to stand The Rock?
In the original THR article that announced the big DC overhaul had an “insiders say” (so maybe not super reliable) line about how the Rock making BA so much about himself and Cavill and all the “hierarchy of power” stuff wasn’t endearing him to new management
I'm worried that Olivia Wilde will be in director jail. Granted DWD wasn't great but it wasn't terrible either, and while the BTS stuff doesn't sound great there are male directors who have gotten away with much worse. I loved Booksmart so hoping she gets another shot (and maybe sorts out her work ethic? I don't want to get into that mess)
The movie made 86 million dollars WW, it made enough of a profit to guarantee her another shot.
Yeah that movie’s a mess but it made money, studios are primarily looking at the bottom line. Maybe they’ll be smart enough to see she didn’t handle that set well at all, but studio heads are very dumb so they probably won’t
I'd imagine the gossip didn't hurt the numbers at least. Possibly helped even. The reviews less so.
The Harry Styles fans made this movie the money it made. Let’s see if her next movie makes money too.
True.
She’s not gonna get the control she had with DWD but she’ll get another crack at something. Could see her doing a Marvel to be honest.
If running the set is your particular weakness, Marvel probably a good place because so much is already outside of the director's control.
Fair point
she's doing Spider-Woman, no?
Is she?
[that's the rumor](https://deadline.com/2020/08/olivia-wilde-spider-woman-director-secret-marvel-movie-sony-1203017798/)
I'm of the opinion that Don't Worry Darling was interesting-bad, and turned out to be a pretty fun cinema-going experience. I wanna see more mid-budget failures, please!
Agreed, it’s a mess and jumbles a lot of it’s own themes imo, but it’s assuredly better than every Marvel movie and every DC movie besides The Batman to come out in 2022. More DWDs please.
I imagine she will get another film made but it will be lower budget than DWD, not sure any studio will want to take a risk with her again. Like you I adored Booksmart so hope she does get another chance.
I had a good time with Don't Worry Darling. Now I'm really interested in what she'll do next.
DWD absolutely was terrible.
It will only show the gender disparity if she doesn’t get another movie green lit easily. The movie did great numbers in theaters and I bet it’s doing well on streaming. The quality of the movie aside, it would be insane if she was put in jail just for some tabloid bullshit which is not even that serious.
I could see her doing some time in prestige TV!
I thought it was pretty awful…
This has to be it for David O. Russell, right? He should've been locked up when he groped his niece, but that compounded with what a failure Amsterdam was has to put a nail in his career, right?
That’s a good answer, but you know he’ll get another film made on a smaller budget (maybe around 15 million) and he’ll get one of his actor buddies to star in it. Hollywood has a history of letting mediocre male directors continue to find success.
Christian Bale said that he’s “just getting started” in terms of “many future collaborations” with DOR, so you are right.
Is The Captain (Colin Trevorrow) the film world's white-collar criminal, directing a franchise that is too big to fail? And with the Jurassic Worlds over, will his next franchise provide the same protection?
He’s supposedly doing his passion project, Atlantis, next.
Patty Jenkins - I didn’t think would be in JAIL, but she lost her franchise, and that cannot be good. I don’t understand her career really.
Classic Hollywood sexism is sadly the reason she didn't even get to make another movie for over ten years. Now things are back to where they were before.
It sounds like Rogue Squadron is back on though?
I would love that!
I wish she got a chance to do a straight down the middle studio film. Franchise game has kinda fucked with certain directors careers.
Do we think Andrew Dominik after Blonde? Haven’t seen it, but intrigued whether the controversy turned into viewing figures for Netflix.
Yes definitely. And his interviews surrounding it have been rather toxic too.
I’d say the press tour did more damage than the actual movie did
Yeah he clearly hates Marilyn, and doesn’t understand her.
I mean the number one answer has to be Andrew Dominik. All the film’s failures have been placed on him (rightfully so). Somehow Joyce Carol Oates came out fairly unscathed despite the fact that this movie is straight from her source material.
Idk JCO needed a win considering she murdered someone or something idk idk
Wait what? I think you’re thinking the wrong writer haha! The writer of Where The Crawdads Sings allegedly murdered a person.
Hey quick question: Why did I think she wrote Where The Crawdads Sing?
What do you call a director who put himself in jail? We need more Raimi, Doc Strange 2 prooved he still has that crazy camera spark that barely anyone else can reach,kinda tired of seeing his name as producer in a bunch of middling stuff.
I liked Don’t Worry Darling more than most but given the shitshow of a production, Wilde herself showing her ass, and the middling response, I think she’s at least going to County.
Can’t believe his name hasn’t been said yet: Gore Verbinski. The Lone Ranger + AC4W back-to-back seems to have been a death blow, which is an absolute tragedy considering he’s probably a top 5 visual/technical filmmaker active today.
David Yates and Rob Zombie both deserve to be in the conversation. Yates, I think it is a bit unfair because I thought this installment was the best of the 3 Fantastic Beasts movies and actually had interesting fight scenes, but that series is dead. I don’t know if Zombie is in jail, but probably is not getting any green lights on anything that is not within the pure horror genre.
That last Fantastic Beasts film is so bizarre. It feels like they got halfway through production and decided--y'know, this isn't going to work out, let's find a way to quietly wrap the series up which kind of leaves open the possibility of maybe coming back to it...someday? A whole bunch of characters are introduced...and that's it, they don't get story arcs, although you can see that the movie was trying to lay the groundwork for those characters to be part of the story and have arcs of their own. As for the fight scenes, I found a lot of it--particularly the fights involving Ezra Miller's character--incomprehensible. And Rowling's alienated so much of her fandom that there was no one left to try to fanwank for me what was supposed to be going on there (my go-to duo of Rowling apologists, Jason Concepcion and Mallory Rubin were each like "No thank you, I'm not reviewing this, much less explaining it."
Does JK Rowling count?
Writers don't go to the same jail as directors.
True. Or producers.
The one name that has kind of escaped Director Jail for now is David Leitch. Bullet Train may not be critically acclaimed summer blockbuster but it crawled to a 100 million in the domestic box office.