Gods of Egypt is responsible for the sickest burn I've ever seen a movie critic make. During the film's post release, Proyas was going off on critics who were panning the movie, calling them "vultures". Mark Kermode noted this comment and said something along the lines of: "vultures only attack things that are dead. Well Mr. Proyas, I am a vulture and your movie is roadkill."
@@diehardeaglesfansince1994 Or maybe it's coz the movie was just ass, CGI looked cheap and writing was bad. It has awkward humour that never lands, bloated green screen action scenes, there was nothing appealing about the plot
I don't think enough people really discuss how terrible Tom Hoopers behind the scenes bull-crap during the making of Cats was. The man didn't understand animation and special effects, and he belittled the crew, he had no clue what a rough cut was, and that's not even getting into how terrible a choice of director he was for a musical like Cats.
Yeah, I'm not sure why he wanted to go with what essentially amounted to an animated film. While I imagine he dealt with a lot of CG on movies likes Les Mis, it wasn't to this degree and it certainly wasn't his forte.
@@Syntopikon There's a YT presenter with a musical background, who discusses the problems involved in the production of "Les Mis" and the connections between these problems and how they also affected "Cats": ua-cam.com/video/1ikqU6G6Xgs/v-deo.html (Les Mis) and ua-cam.com/video/i3aK-EK5V2k/v-deo.html (Cats).
The character design for that movie was nightmare fuel for my dreams. I have to drink an 8 oz cup of vodka with my handful of benzos to sleep these days and I think that freakin' movie had something to do with my substance abuse spiraling out of control.
I know Nicolas Walder-Costeau from exactly 2 things: Jamie Lannister from Game of Thrones and Horus from Gods of Egypt. Dude's a ridiculously handsome man with good acting skills; why isn't he in more things
@@vitoc8454 1. His name is Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. If you -- as a fan of his -- can't get his name right, how do you expect other people to? 2. His accent.
@@SyntopikonI guarantee it was an obligation film I bet if he actually wanted to make it. It would’ve been way better still hope it not the last I see of him
Why Tom Hooper thought that Cats in cgi was a good idea (instead of animation or like the Broadway show is: people in makeup) is beyond me, he destroyed his own career with that ideia. The saddest party is seeing so many good actors appearing in that disaster.
That's part of why I put that Variety quote in it. It really was a blemish on a lot of actors. I can understand that Hooper likes musical's, but there were a lot of good ones to choose from if he wanted to transpose a musical to the big screen.
I think it’s either because he thought animation was solely for children and not prestigious enough for his attempt at Oscar bait, or it was a studio decision. Granted, Cats is a musical that children can watch so being animated shouldn’t be the problem.
When I saw the first trailer I felt so bad for the cast (except for James Corden who probably deserved it.) Dench, Elba, and McKellan in particular. Most directors would thank the film gods to have even one of the three attached to a picture, but Hooper turned them into uncanny valley abominations.
Its Nicolas Cage, not the other way around. Took me a while to figure out how to spell his name correctly. No ´h´ allowed in this name. Best wishes from Iceland.
I thought Cage's best performance was Color Out Of Space, he was terrifying, creepiest moment was him putting his daughter into the attic with the mutated mother, while I see some thinking the voice he put on as funny, it worked for me in the story's context, the guy had an abusive father and the alien makes Cage have a split personality, that being his father.
One name I'm surprised isn't on this list is Martin Brest. The guy directed classics like 'Beverly Hills Cop', 'Scent of a Woman' and 'Midnight Run' and his career was destroyed by the Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez picture 'Gigli', often regarded as one of the worst films of all time.
Brest is a good one and has some classics. The only reason he wasn't in this one was because the list already got unwieldy and there were a lot of directors I had to cut that I'll be talking about in future videos.
Brest got SCREWED HARD on Gigli. It was originally written and shot to be just a straight crime comedy but the studio demanded more focus on Ben and J-Lo's characters romantically because of their real-life romance at the time and thus turned it into a rom-com.
Which is frustrating because by all accounts the version we got to see had precisely fuck all in common with the film Josh Trank wanted to make. It was butchered in the editing room.
Cats isnt meant to be a movie. Its meant to be experienced live. Making it a movie draws attention to the fact that Cats really doesn't have a plot beyond cats singing about themselves.
@@SyntopikonCats is what happens when somebody's repressed inner furry somehow clawed it's way out of the mind abyss, made a manifesto of destruction before getting locked back inside the mind abyss for all eternity
He also said iRobot was one of the most memorable films of the 2000s for him. For me, that wouldn't even be a memorable movie if it was released today. Let alone one of the most memorable of the 2000s when there were movies like Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine, Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds, Oh Brother Where Art Thou, A Serious Man, No Country For Old Men, American Psycho, Donnie Darko, The Aviator, Coraline, Sin City, Collateral, City of God, Gladiator, Let The Right One In, Lord Of The Rings, and on and on and on....
@@GhostfaceDylanidk , as a 2000s teen i can tell you i robot was a much bigger thing than adaptation for instance. i mean its will smith fighting robots
@@Syntopikon i mean there was a long period of time where insulting keanu was the normal thing to do. its honestly crazy he even became this protected actor considering most of hollywood was against him. insulting keanu now is maybe a good barometer but back then? no.
It's a shame that some of Hooper's bad films were successful. That's why he got Cats. Les Miserables wasn't a good film and or musical but because it was successful the studio drew the wrong conclusion and decided that he knew how to make musicals, which he clearly doesn't.
I liked Les Miz but I also think some people (Universal in particular) got the wrong takeaway from it. Hooper's niche is period pieces that emphasizes the actors and that didn't change with Les Miz. Anne Hathaway was the runaway winner for an Oscar that year, Jackman was a no brainer nomination and I still feel Eddie Redmayne and Samantha Barks should've gotten nominations that year too. Cats has always been more about the spectacle which does not fit into Hooper's wheelhouse even a little bit and it showed.
@@bigbearkat2010 I'm still fuming that Hathaway got listed under Best Actress and not SUPPORTING ACTRESS. She is NOT the female lead in the movie; Amanda Seyfried is! Fatine only has that ONE song number before dying. Why give Hathaway an Oscar nom at all if she's barely in it?
@@FillmGeekOfDoom I feel like I should remind you Hathaway did indeed win for Supporting Actress that year, so you seem to be fuming over something that didn't happen.
You forgot to mention Michael Cimino who made "Heaven's Gate" in 1980 and ruined his own career with it. It's one of the most infamous instances of career suicide.
In retrospect, Heaven’s Gate has been recognized as the incredible work that it is. What slowed him down was his inability to compromise and take on many projects that were offered to him. Year of the Dragon (1985) is a masterpiece. Very fortunate to have seen the pre-release version shortly after his death at the New Beverly in Los Angeles
@@J.S.3259 Sure, Heaven's Gate is recognized NOW as being decent. But now is too late. John Carpenter's 1980s work is more beloved now than it was then, but the damage was done and he couldn't recover.
I saw Wolverine in "The Music Man" in NYC about a year ago. He is a very good singer. He also hung out in the alley signing autographs, taking photos with people, and shooting the bull after the show for about a half hour, which I thought was very cool.
I’m not so sure about your prediction of The Lone Ranger becoming a cult classic. I watched that film at around the perfect age and I can say even back then I found it dull. To each their own and all that but I highly doubt it’ll see any sort of revival in terms of public opinion.
it's possible that some of us who didn't watch the Lone Ranger til years later and had such low expectations thought that it was more deserving than those who viewed it upon it's release. I'm not saying all of us, nor am i saying it will definitely obtain cult status, but that's the thing with cult movies. they usually stem from critically and commercially disappointing movies, but no one can predict which ones. ever.
@@julieb.5860 Definitely! I think Armie Hammer's career ending right after that for uhh unrelated reasons is another thing that is going to keep this from becoming a cult classic, though - it's got a lot going against it unfortunately. It will be interesting to see if it does or not!
I was outraged to see "Bone Tomahawk" in the thumbnail, I couldn't believe that horror classic could have ruined the Director's career. But then I realised it was actually "The Lone Ranger" so fair enough 🤷♂
Lol both Bone Tomahawk and Lone Ranger lost money but unlike the latter, Bone Tomahawk is an indisputably great movie (of course, it is I who is disputing people that drag Lone Ranger 😭)
If "Rango" is not a modern classic, it should be one of the funnest movies. Does it have all the tropes of Western films? Yes, but that was the idea. I'm no film nerd so I can't specify why it is a great film, but I thoroughly enjoy it and the story. It's straight out of the Hero's Saga.
I saw the film in theaters in 2011 as a kid and I was all in it for the action and for Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, CN etc but you're right it has the tropes of a western and a hero's journey. How it was made was instead of saying lines in a booth, they used emotion capture to get different expressions on the faces of the characters.
I'm inclined to agree. I like that it used the tropes of Westerns as it also provides an avenue for others to get interested in it. It's a fun film that's fantastically animated and, I think, still holds up very well.
Yeah I'm also one who thought Gods of Egypt was a lot of fun. Its been a long time since I last watched it but I remember it being a casual action adventure with a lot of CGI which wasn't great, but it was refreshing to have a movie about Egyptian mythology for once. The sad part is, executives look at how it turned out and go "audiences don't like Egypt anymore", and we won't see another movie touch on this subject probably for decades.
Happy to find someone else who enjoyed it! Yeah, I hope that's not the lesson they take away from it. Egyptian history & mythology is fascinating (and AC: Origins ended up being one of my most recent Platinums, even though it's not really Ancient Egypt).
Todd Philips will probably be on a future list lol. That said, now I'm more interested to see if he can this ship. If he can, it might be one of the greatest comebacks in history.
@@Syntopikon You'd think from the amount of fan and critical backlash that Phillips had committed some sort of high treason. I haven't seen this much hatred and vitriol thrown at a film since... well, 2 weeks ago with Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis. But, Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix didn't want to do a sequel to Joker in the first place. Was this their way of a two fingered salute to fandom?
You do get a bit of that sense. I read in a THR article that the movie was basically borne of a dream that Phoenix had, and that Philips had final cut. He could basically do whatever he wanted, and WB was happy to foot the bill. They gave him the Cimino treatment and he ran with it (though Joker 2 is a far less interesting movie than Heaven's Gate).
@@Syntopikon Plus, it's not going to ruin Warner Bros., even though their parent company WBD are about $40 billion in debt even before Joker Folie a Deux opened. But, it'll make Warners take care when selecting future projects and giving unlimited power to directors.
@@Syntopikon As for Todd Phillips, between both Joker films, he was planning a Hulk Hogan biopic for Netflix with Chris Hemsworth attached. That seems to have fallen by the wayside. That's an idea for a future video @Syntopikon, successful directors who left the big studios for streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon or Apple. Zack Snyder and David Fincher are two examples, both went to Netflix after being shafted by the studios.
Another director you never hear of anymore is Stephen Sommers, people probably don't remember but he was huge during the 2000's. Even before that he made a couple of cult classics with his remake of The Jungle Book and Deep Rising. Of course his Mummy movies shot him to the big leagues and he was attached to several high-profile projects. Then G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra happened, not a-lot of information has come out about the filming process but I get the impression that it was a very troubled production and the final result basically killed Sommer's career. He only made one movie during the 2010's, a very low-budget called Odd Thomas and that's been it.
That's a good one, too. I think his problem ended up being that the budgets really got up there with Van Helsing & Rise of Cobra but the box office (and critical reviews) just weren't there. The Mummy movies made like 4x each on budgets below $100m, while Helsing & Cobra probably lost money. You're right about the troubled production, I think, not least of all because I think Channing Tatum was forced into the role because of his contract with Paramount. Difficult to say whether he'll make another movie again.
What a shame. I actually thought Stephen Sommers was a good director and producer. While he’s not the greatest, he has made some entertaining films. He hasn’t direct any films for a long time. The Jungle Book (1994) I thought was a fantastic adventure film and one of the few good Disney live action remakes. The cult classic Deep Rising was a fun guilty pleasure sea monster film. The Mummy (1999) is definitely a fantastic adventure horror film and Sommers best film. The Mummy Returns was great sequel. Van Helsing was a great entertaining fun action horror monster film. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was entertaining but Sommers weaker film. Both Van Helsing and G.I. Joe were not really failures but certainly not as successful as the first two Mummy films which they both grossed more than $400 million worldwide. Van Helsing did grossed $300 million worldwide which was considered a moderate success but not enough for a sequel. G.I. Joe has grossed $302 million worldwide which was also a mild success but not as huge success as the Michael Bay’s Transformers films though The Last Knight flopped hard.
Fun fact: Sommers was supposed to direct Night At The Museum, but got replaced because his version would've been darker and Fox wanted it to be more of a family-friendly comedy.
@@Syntopikon While "G.I. Joe" and "Van Helsing" didn't perform as well as "The Mummy" they certainly weren't flops at the box office and likely made their money back on DVD, Bluray and linear TV which were big at that time. I also think the 2,5 x budget = break even formula wasn't the regular multiple during the 2000's, marketing spent surely was way lower back then and inflation has to be factored in.
He definitely would've been a fitting director. Especially if he was doing full Ring. Regardless I think the person that Netflix choose to direct is just as much of a good choice. Hopefully they don't screw it up.
You should also put Ang Lee in this list as well because even though Ang Lee was one of my favorite movie directors, he hasn’t made any great films for a long time. Ang Lee was a wonderful acclaim director who had great success with movies like Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman, Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hulk, Brokeback Mountain, Lust Caution, and Life of Pi. But he also have some failures like The Ice Storm despite critical acclaim, Ride with the Devil which was forgotten, Taking Woodstock also forgotten, Billy Lynn’s Halftime Walk Show which was forgotten as well, and Gemini Man which I agree is his worst. After the critical and box office failure of Gemini Man, Ang Lee has not direct another film.
Ang Lee is a good one and I'll be sure to include him in a future video. A lot of directors I have in this one, and a future one, are some of my favorites. Hurts to put them here, but it'd be dishonest to leave them out. Yeah, Life of Pi was probably his last good one. The only thing I remember from Bill Lynn's was I believe he tried experimenting with 48 or 60 FPS and it didn't turn out well. Then Gemini Man was a massive flop (despite starring Will Smith).
Patty Jenkins is absent from this essay, Wonder Woman 1984 was a downgrade from the first one and her previous work. but the video is still great work man.
Glad you liked it! Patty Jenkins is an interesting case. 1984 was impacted by the pandemic as well, which could've hurt it. I think with her, its less that a movie ended her career and more that she and studios don't see eye-to-eye on how a movie should proceed. In her case, I think "creative differences" might actually be the issue. After Monster, it seemed like studios were ready to work with her but they were never able to find a project that both parties could agree to work on.
@@Syntopikon You may be right, We should also consider her Star Wars movie, which was greenlit but seems unlikely to be produced soon, if at all. Let's see what the future holds for her. In the meantime, I'll keep watching your videos. Greetings from Honduras!
What’s wrong with The Thomas Crowne Affair remake? I think it’s one of the few remakes that feels original when watching and is just a fantastic watch.
I like it more than the original, which I found pretty forgettable. Brosnan and Russo have great chemistry and the Magritte heist set to Nina Simone's Sinnerman is just fantastic.
Horton is one of the most hated directors/clients in the VFX community. I work in VFX and people who worked in Cats told me unimaginable horror stories. Cats is the perfect showcase of a movie that was destinied to fail because director has no understanding of the technology involved. And what's more, ge becomes abusive to the overworked, underpaid artists. Just go to his wiki page and read the VFX chapter. Whenever you see a movie with bad VFX do a research and you'll discover the same reasons every time.
I'm so pumped for Gore Verbinski's comeback with Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, it's got such a great cast and fun premise. Hopefully though it does well commercially, because like you said I don't think it was at all justified what happened to Gore following Lone Ranger. Weather Man is a severely undervalued black comedy for those who haven't seen it. I'm so impressed with how many genres Gore can tackle throughout his career. It's such a crime we never got to see his Bioshock movie come to fruition, that seemed like a perfect match.
Likewise. The guy's a great director and deserves another chance. He gave Disney a knock out hit AND franchise, which ought to get him some slack. Wow, I had forgotten that he was attached the Bioshock movie even though thinking back, I did talk about it in a different video about movies stuck in development hell.
Another one is Jan De Bont who made Speed & Twister. Best movies of the 90s. He left directing after Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life as big studios like Paramount were taking over the film.
Jan De Bont is a good one and I was about to include him, but this list was already getting long so I'm putting him in a similar, future video. There are so many directors in this same position, it's wild/
@@branagain I think it's a mixture of Speed 2 + Lara Croft, and the fact that the last 3 movies he directed also got smashed at the box office. The studio saw the writing on the wall.
Steven Spielberg has had several flops, but always managed to come back from them. However 'West Side Story' may have ended his career for good. He did produce 'The Fabelmans' afterwards, but that had a smaller budget and was a love letter to his childhood. I doubt he'll be able to make an epic movie again which will make a lot of money.
I'm not so sure, as he already has a project lined up at Universal - which he has a longstanding relationship with - and it's supposed to be an "event" film, which I take to mean big-budget.
Steven Spielberg is still one of my all time favorite directors. He actually had more success in his career from 1970s-2010s. Jurassic Park (1993) is still my number one favorite movie of all time. However, it’s true. Spielberg hasn’t made any successful blockbusters since the last box office success Spielberg had was the 2018 science fiction adventure film, Ready Player One. After that, the last two Spielberg films like West Side Story and The Fablemans have failed really badly at the box office despite critical acclaim.
The ONLY one really missing here is Josh Trank. But I like how you bring up directors destroying there OWN careers. Maybe a part 2? Josh Trank destroyed himself .
Josh Trank is a good one and definitely one that destroyed himself. The only reason I didn't put him on this list is because I spoke about him in a couple of previous videos and I was trying to go for directors I hadn't covered as much or at all here.
I really enjoy the diverse filmography of Gore Verbinski, but I don't know why he thought "The Lone Ranger" was a good blockbuster film decision. A film like "The Mexican" is a studio comedy that doesn't get made all that often anymore, and even "A Cure for Wellness" is one that is very underrated for a Sci-Fi horror flick.
I think part of him doing The Lone Ranger was because it was something like Pirates of the Caribbean on land. Maybe he was hoping to do an epic western in that same vein.
TLR was one of those movies that was planned to be one of Disney's next big franchises that could potentially compete with the MCU. It also went through development hell and likely Disney cut a pretty attractive deal to Verbinski just to get it filmed and off the slate after they bought out Marvel Entertainment. The biggest issue it had in my opinion was the fact that it was a 2000s movie that came out in the 2010s, had it come out pre-2012 even it might have done better, but Marvel really changed the game with the Avengers to the point that when TLR came out a year later it felt dated, even the casual audience that would have gone to see it pre-Avengers just weren't interested, not to mention it's when intersectional politics started on their way to the mainstream, so discussions around cultural appropriation became a controversy that had the film come out a few years earlier, it might not have faced. I think Verbinski thought that maybe TLR would prove he still "got it", and that style of movie could compete with the new kids on the block.
Solid list, good video, but holy shit seeing Gods of Egypt in theaters 5 times is unhinged. I worked on that movie and have never even been able to sit through it once. It’s truly dreadful.
The wide range of topics covered on this channel relating to film is amazing, absolutely essential to understanding both the creative and business aspects of a film production. Sincerely, an aspiring film student.
I sincerely wish you the best and hope to see your future contributions to this form of art brother. Words of advice. 1. George Lucas once mentioned that Soviet Russia has more freedom than American creators back in the days. Today: soviet doesn't exist anymore and when neo-liberal forces won in the guide of "personal freedom" and hammers shitty propaganda into the platforms they own with easily disproven arguments like. Unchecked capitalism will lead to greater and greater end products (even art) and how its fair while this creates another form of godkings with even more influence over every aspects of society. unique game changing art is rare. Shareholders wants art, to sell, it is affected by shareholders whom answers to shitty concepts as "quarterly reports", ceo bonuses, cut content, whip people into cutting corners and since they want the movies to become blockbusters and DO MORE WITH LESS! You will also get to hear "oh i hear you, awesome idea, but THIS movie did THAT, could you marry the concepts?" "Add stuff thst does well in focus test groups" etc And in the end you will have to balance your arts integrity with the moneybag and frustration. At some time you as any artist wether it be a clothes designer, video game creators, CGI expert, choreographer or film creator. 2. ALWAYS KICK UPWARDS. Dont blame the staff for shortage in quality when the budget is cut and release date pushed back for early release. 3. Dont fall into the"Star Wars trap" Its another balancing act between A) listen to fans but dont compromise too much. Horror example: Ecumene Aztec. A game about fighting spanish invaders whom literally wiped their whole culture off the map in real life history. The azstecs were different for sure, but genocide, pillaging and slavery is hardly great qualities either. But the game was about a character sneaking around and freeing people in cages and stopping what objectively is an invasion and protecting the weak during this invasion. Video game right-wingers did what they do best, they spent much of their free time unleashing their toxicity in any way they could in a coordinated campaign against the company whom, instead of sticking to their Guns, gave the players the option the become a traitor, adopting the whole "we come to civilize you by force, slavery, horrors, pillaging and colonization. Well known example: star wars 7,8,9. Not respecting the source material and not pushing back on this enough to those with the moneybag whom only wanted to copy paste the earlier successes by riding a franchise it is VERY hard to fail with. Bad writing, including legendary characters but without doing anyhing good with them, like killing characters off screen, throwing Mark Hamill the worst return ever etc Useless choreography. Well. The reasons behind the desicions that lead to this shit show is many. But blaming fans for not having good taste and calling the passionate fans with valuable criticism toxic by mixing them in WITH the toxic minority will not do you any favors. There will always be hate watchers, racists, sexists etc whom will portray themselves as "us gamers" as the entirety of a fanbase, the trick is to recognize bad faith shit heads whom starts sweating when they hear rumors about inclusion. They will never have ANY problem with white straight men taking over ANY role but they will not be satisfied with anything either for that matter. For real, if you would give them Christian Bale as Black Panther, their concern would be "ok, but its SOOO liberal marxist left wing ultrafeminist propaganda that he has female fighters on his team, also, why does Wakanda have to be so full of africans ?" (aka wakandian citizens) (This type of people still think Africa is a country) While im no fan of bad show horning in swaps, its important to show that representation matters, maybe not to them, but fuck them. While this in no way fixes societies msny problem with xenophobia, it shows what type of person you are. And fuck those who does not like what they see what kind pf person you are when you do your best to be kind, if they hate THAT, it shows more of what kind of people THEY are. So, listen to fans, respect legacy, learn to discern hate watchers and as SOON AS POSSIBLE, hire people to do the discerning what is what and make sure they know what they are doing. 4. If ANYBODY calls you and wants to do a second movie based on the first live Action super Mario movie. Dont do it. That movie not only features King coopa as a D Trump clone, it is CURSED! Career ending movie period. With that in mind. I wish you the best and hope we get to see what you are made of. ❤
I actually really enjoy The 13th Warrior. A unique take on Beowulf and no one does raw violence like McTiernan. Plus Banderas was coming off the success of Mask of Zorro and this film subverted expectations for his character.
It's why I find it hard to ascribe blame to pretty much anyone when a movie flops. Sometimes, it's just the way the wind blows. No one would've expected Paranormal Activity to make so much money, and the same is true for big budget flops. If anyone actually had it figured out, there would be no flops. About the most blame one can lay is that a movie shouldn't have been so expensive, but, then, that's on the studio.
Les miserable was tideous to watch The singing was TOO MUCH The movie was long as hell also Anne hathaway was barely in the movie even tho she was featured heavily in the trailers
That reminds of how Bryan Cranston was in the Godzilla trailers a lo as well but they hardly used him. A friend of mine loves Les Miserable, and I don't mind musicals, but it just wasn't for me as well.
I mean if you think the musical is long, I would blame the source material, not Hooper and that goes for the singing too. And yeah weird how they would use one of their biggest stars in the marketing so much, particularly the most famous song in the musical.
Cats was terrible. But Tom Hooper was terrible before that. He just got lucky that no one noticed his flaws before. Patrick Willems does a terrific video essay on Cats, in which he points out the bizarre choices he made in Les Mis and Kings Speech. It’s like the old saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Love Patrick Willems videos. Film-wise, I think Hooper is fine, but that John Adams miniseries really puts him over for me. For me, it's just really that good.
The critical response to Hooper's Les Mis is what fully broke my faith in professional film criticism. It was borderline unwatchable and should have ended his career before he got his paws on Cats.
Upon seeing the 2018 Arrow Video release, I find it a missed opportunity that they didn't include Overnight as a bonus feature for The Boondock Saints: In a conflict between a visionary director and one of Hollywood's biggest supervillains, Troy Duffy somehow managed to be the greater of the evils by using his fame as justification for his self-destructive toxic behaviour. A classic cautionary tale and lesson in humility.
Patty Jenkins is another great example. She started off great with Monster in 2003. Then it all came crumbling down for her after Wonder Woman 1984 in 2020.
I feel like Lone Ranger at least had a couple good set pieces (not nearly worth the budget they paid for them but still) but yes Gods of Egypt is hot garbage
I don't think The Lone Ranger will likely ever become a cult film; that movie is so tonally jacked and the action is way too over the top for a western. However, I do think A Cure for Wellness might have a shot at cult movie status someday. That flick had some flaws, but overall I thought it was fairly original and kept me hooked.
I loved The Lone Ranger....I will argue that anyone who appreciates cinema through the ages loves that movie. Unfortunately it was misunderstood by the general audiences when it came out
Dude I'm really glad I found your channel months ago. You've always got interesting and varied subjects to cover. Some I'm aware and some that I'm not. I'll never forget my experience with Cats, I was left dumbfounded by the whole thing. I didn't even hate it, it was just a bizarre experience that was hard to compute. 😅😂
Glad you've enjoyed it over the last few months! I think that's how a lot of people felt with Cats lol. I think it was a sort of interesting experiment, but wildly expensive. Tom Hooper is a smart guy and all of his prior productions were, by comparison, not as reliant on special effects to the degree that Cats was. I think if he tried a different musical, it could've turned out better.
Covering in an upcoming video. My contention, though, is that his filmic career pretty much ended after Dracula. Megalopolis is just an extension of 30 years of flops, except on a much bigger scale (and with $140,000,000 of his own money 😭)
The Wachowskis (formerly known as the Wachowski brothers) should also be in this list as well. The Wachowskis had wonderful success with the first three Matrix films. However, it all changed when they direct other big budget science fiction films such as Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas, and Jupiter Ascending which were all flopped so badly at the box office.
I actually liked Speed Racer that I saw it twice in the movie theater. The mainstream media tore this film to shreds for no reason and dissuaded the public from viewing it. Come to think of it, there's a scene in the film that criticizes the mainstream media and that most likely set them off to sink the film.
@@sjdrifter72 I respect your opinion. For me, I thought was an okay movie. Not bad but not that great. Could have been better. I think another reason why Speed Racer bombed was because it was overshadowed by Iron Man. Then the rest of the summer of 2008, everybody went out to see other blockbusters at that time like The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Kung Fu Panda, The Incredible Hulk, Get Smart, Wall E, Wanted, Hancock, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Mamma Mia, and of course The Dark Knight, one of my all time favorite movies as well as The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and Tropic Thunder. So yeah. They pick really bad timing to release Speed Racer.
The Wachowski's are an interesting case because The Matrix: Resurrections was pretty recent and while it flopped, I'm not sure if it ended their careers. I say that because none of the movies since Speed Racer have made any money yet they still seem to be able to get fairly large budgets. I would've said their careers were over at different points yet I keep being surprised.
2008 was definitely a packed year. I think the fact that wide release happened literally between Iron Man and Prince Caspian, followed a few days later by Indiana Jones, worked against it. It was clobbered on both sides from the jump.
I cannot fathom how the Academy loved Les Misersbles. You watch that movie you would think this guy should never make a musical again. But then they gave him another musical. What the hell?
The Academy is, for reason's I personally don't get, partial to musicals. If I had to guess, it's because the actors branch is the largest and musicals are pretty much always about the actors (+ the set design). I think nominations for things like Costume Design, Makeup, and Production design were warranted, but not Best Picture.
@@Syntopikon that’s a great point. And you’re right about the Oscar for best hairstyle but the other nominations were actually for best supporting actress and sound mixing. Making it live (while some of your actors are dehydrated or have mucus running down their throat) doesn’t do Les Misérables justice. It’s a grand story about the city of Paris, why would you want your interpreters to be at their weakest while singing something so grand? Sorry, I really have a passionate love for Les Misérables and Hooper really screwed it up.
I hope Tom Hooper and Gore Verbinski make comebacks. Also, Dominic Sena’s Kalifornia is what Natural Born Killers should have been. But that’s just me. Also, I haven’t seen either of those movies in 20 years but that’s the impression I remember.
6:01 Proyas is currently in the process of developing a film adaptation of R.U.R, a 1920 Czech play that has become a notable piece of science fiction. It's notable for introducing the word "robot" into modern culture. Having read it, it's quite innovative for its time, and introduced many themes seen in science fiction today, although today many say it hasn't aged well (I personally can't say I agree with that). I'm interested in how Proyas will direct it, and hopefully it will be his directorial comeback.
Tom Hooper deserves to go to director’s jail. His name is poison now. Anything else he does will be prefaced “The guy who made all the decisions on Cats.”
James Wong should also be in this list because the last movie he directed was that terrible abomination called Dragonball Evolution. James Wong was known for directing other films like Final Destination 1 and 3 and The One starring Jet Li. After Dragonball Evolution was a critical and box office failure, James Wong never direct another movie afterwards. James Wong is so much better as a writer and producer which is why he has worked on The X-Files tv series and served as one of the executive producers of American Horror Story.
While Dragonball Evolution was a flop (I saw it in theaters and was not a fan), I feel like he's someone that should get a chance. The overall budget was pretty small and it still managed to double it. But man, the guy hit it out of the park with American Horror Story.
@@Syntopikon True. American Horror Story is a wonderful horror anthology tv series. Although it’s true that the god awful Dragonball crap Evolution had a budget of $30 million, it’s still a box office bomb since it only took $55 million worldwide. If a film had a budget of $30 million, it needs to grossed more than $90 million or $100 million to break even.
If we talk about movies that ended Directors careers, Joker 2 is one of them, actually the film director Todd Phillips said he was done after making Joker 1 & 2, and also it's not his fault if the movie didn't succeed as the first one, they forced clearly him to do a sequel no one wanted.
Philips is an interesting case. He and Phoenix didn't want to do the sequel, but he also ended up getting final cut so whatever we see on screen is pretty much entirely attributable to him. Warner Bros. should've been happy that they caught lightning in a bottle with the first Joker and just given Philips a development deal.
I guess I shouldn't be that surprised that the rom com genre gets neglected in this video. When we look at the 2000s, (another) peak comedy decade, there were 2 directors competing for being the best commercial comedy directors in the same way Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich were the best commercial action directors. Robert Luketic and Andy Tennant. Robert Luketic started strong with "Legally Blonde", putting Josh Duhamel on the map with "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton", Jane Fonda's return to acting in "Monster-in-Law" and the very big success "The Ugly Truth" starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. Naturally, a Katherine Heigl follow up "Killers" was made a year after but to a critical and commercial failure. But it was the Tech Thriller "Paranoia (2013)" that ended Robert Luketic's career. Andy Tennant also started with a Reese Witherspoon rom com "Sweet Home Alabama" although arguably he peaked with the follow up "Hitch". Then he tried to recandle the spark between Kate Hudson and Matthew Mcconaughey in "Fool's Gold". I think that was a commercial success. Anyway, the movie "The Bounty Hunter" again with Gerard Butler, ended his career for a long time. "The Bounty Hunter" is incredibly derivative even compared to "Killers" from his peer Mr. Luketic. Doesn't help "Knight and Day" was released that same year also :I
😭 I'm interested to see how Philips adapts to this. I was thinking of adding him in a future video, but I get the feeling that I want to let the dust settle a bit first.
@@asurlybarber3620 That's a fact, and also It signalled that Star Wars as a brand, is indeed so powerful that no matter the how bad the quality of a product, it will still bring profit.
Mouse Hunt is one of my favourite films. The rest of the things Verbinski did, didn't interest me at all. That's part of the trouble with getting a big Hollywood career. Lots of directors just end up churning out Director For Hire pap, which rarely has the elan of the personal and idiosyncratic. Even the casting of Mouse Hunt was wonderfully off beat. Compare that with the casting required for the Lone Ranger - a big yuck and yawn. Indeed, Johnny Depp's career was largely ruined by studios suddenly deciding he was a bankable actor for bland blockbusters. When he was doing things like The Dead Man, The Libertine, and Ed Wood...he was great. But The Tourist, Mordecai, the Lone Ranger..dear god.
This brings up the ever-important topic of: money vs creativity in art. Movies are such massive projects, they need a lot of money (even mid-budget films are tens of millions, which most creatives, even if they could afford it, don't want to risk). I think a return to the system of one-for-us, one-for-you is overdue. Let directors, actors, etc. make one movie designed to put people in seats for the studio, and let the studio fund one of their passion projects. If that project is a hit, all the better.
@@Syntopikon Yes, indeed. I believe Steven Soderberg used to work on that basis..the one for them, one for me. As did George Clooney. That does make a great deal more sense. Billy Wilder seemed to do something similar, though he was, of course, operating fully in that old Studio System world. But he's push out a Seven Year Itch - hugely successfully, truly awful, and then be able to do Sunset Boulevard or Lost Weekend. I saw a bit of an interview with him when he was quite old, but still very chatty and sharp. The interviewer was being a bit too oleaginous and said something about "you only made great films" . Wilder laughed in shock and retorted along the lines of "I've made so much garbage, and some that don't embarrass me. It's just a job." Verbinski has made so many very successful films that I hope being saddled with the Lone Ranger didn't cost him personal money. My daughter was raised on Mouse Hunt, so Mr Verbinski has a special place in my heart, always. Your narration of the section on Troy Duffy was so amusing, I laughed so loudly I frightened my poor cat. Someone should make about film about him!
Gods of Egypt rode the curtails of Exodus God & Kings, the Ridley Scott Egyptian period piece released 2 years prior that also had an unapologetically- Caucasian cast. By the time GoE came out viewers everywhere basically said “again?next”. The film was a train wreck to everyone involved.Brenton Thwaites was on his way to becoming a new “it” boy in movies,but after GoE and Pirates5 it’s been nothing but radio silence for him.I don’t think he’s starred in a major film since.
How on earth do you go from The Kings Speech to Cats. I guess his choice to have live singing on set in Les Mis was a sign of things to come 🫤 He got pretentious that’s for sure
It's a wild jump, even considering Les Mis because Cats was entirely CGI and he hadn't worked with it on that level before. He should've done some other musical lol
I'm surprised Josh Trank, Bryan Singer, or even the supposed "Spielberg-clone" JJ Abrams received no mention on this list, as they've all fallen from grace with the world at their fingertips.
Singer & Trank I've talked about in other videos, which is why I left them off on this one - but both certainly fit.JJ Abrams is an odd case as he's got like a dozen things in the pipeline, but just isn't directing them. So still quite active.
Bryan Singer’s career didn’t die because of making a bad movie, his career died because of his sexual assault allegations. JJ Abrams career didn’t die. It takes him years to direct anything new.
Rango is a masterpiece
The voice acting
The story
The animation/vfxs
There's a reason it won best animation at the oscars
Yup. Absolutely phenomenal film. Glad I was able to see it in theaters.
@@Syntopikon Nickelodeon made Rango.
@@MacSmithVideono u
@@SyntopikonYou forgot Cool World and Titan A.E.
Rango is so grimy looking, but so good !
Gods of Egypt is responsible for the sickest burn I've ever seen a movie critic make.
During the film's post release, Proyas was going off on critics who were panning the movie, calling them "vultures". Mark Kermode noted this comment and said something along the lines of: "vultures only attack things that are dead. Well Mr. Proyas, I am a vulture and your movie is roadkill."
100 bucks says it's because they had white men in it
The story is also corny as a cob, tha acting is cheap, and the CGI looks like chrome trash. @diehardeaglesfansince1994
@@diehardeaglesfansince1994 Or maybe it's coz the movie was just ass, CGI looked cheap and writing was bad. It has awkward humour that never lands, bloated green screen action scenes, there was nothing appealing about the plot
That roast probably burn his career cause goddayum!!
Love Kermode, only discovered his and Mayo's show last year
I don't think enough people really discuss how terrible Tom Hoopers behind the scenes bull-crap during the making of Cats was. The man didn't understand animation and special effects, and he belittled the crew, he had no clue what a rough cut was, and that's not even getting into how terrible a choice of director he was for a musical like Cats.
Yeah, I'm not sure why he wanted to go with what essentially amounted to an animated film. While I imagine he dealt with a lot of CG on movies likes Les Mis, it wasn't to this degree and it certainly wasn't his forte.
@@Syntopikon There's a YT presenter with a musical background, who discusses the problems involved in the production of "Les Mis" and the connections between these problems and how they also affected "Cats": ua-cam.com/video/1ikqU6G6Xgs/v-deo.html (Les Mis) and ua-cam.com/video/i3aK-EK5V2k/v-deo.html (Cats).
I felt like it was because people want to forget Cats existed
The character design for that movie was nightmare fuel for my dreams. I have to drink an 8 oz cup of vodka with my handful of benzos to sleep these days and I think that freakin' movie had something to do with my substance abuse spiraling out of control.
He also directed the movie of the musical "Les Mis"!
I knew how bad MORBIUS and MADAME WEB were gonna be when I saw it had the writers from GODS OF EGYPT
Gods of Egypt is far superior to either of them.
@@Syntopikon
#IBlameAviArad
Really!! How the guy who wrote Gods of egypt got a second chance to write a movie again and even approved his story.🤮🤮🤮
I know Nicolas Walder-Costeau from exactly 2 things: Jamie Lannister from Game of Thrones and Horus from Gods of Egypt.
Dude's a ridiculously handsome man with good acting skills; why isn't he in more things
@@vitoc8454 1. His name is Nikolaj Coster-Waldau. If you -- as a fan of his -- can't get his name right, how do you expect other people to? 2. His accent.
"Critics weren't fans of Halle Berry's topless scene"
This is why you can never trust critics.
This isn’t true.
For real. It was forced? What kind of stupid crap is that I didn’t realize it was critiqued as a christian family movie
Halle Barry IBTC founding member!
When are boobs ever a negative thing lol
That's why you can trust them, they're not distracted by boobs, they're focused.
Next will be Joker 2 ending Todd Phillips’ career
😭 Whatever Philips was expecting, this probably wasn't it. Or maybe he had an inkling.
It would be good
@@SyntopikonI guarantee it was an obligation film I bet if he actually wanted to make it. It would’ve been way better still hope it not the last I see of him
Was literally just about to say that
@@lukeborne3253 I'm no Pitbull fan nor Walmart's but when 4chan sent him to Alaska, he went there and gave he's best- that's what men do.
Why Tom Hooper thought that Cats in cgi was a good idea (instead of animation or like the Broadway show is: people in makeup) is beyond me, he destroyed his own career with that ideia. The saddest party is seeing so many good actors appearing in that disaster.
That's part of why I put that Variety quote in it. It really was a blemish on a lot of actors. I can understand that Hooper likes musical's, but there were a lot of good ones to choose from if he wanted to transpose a musical to the big screen.
I think it’s either because he thought animation was solely for children and not prestigious enough for his attempt at Oscar bait, or it was a studio decision.
Granted, Cats is a musical that children can watch so being animated shouldn’t be the problem.
It was his unfamiliarity with the technology. That's the simple answer.
When I saw the first trailer I felt so bad for the cast (except for James Corden who probably deserved it.) Dench, Elba, and McKellan in particular. Most directors would thank the film gods to have even one of the three attached to a picture, but Hooper turned them into uncanny valley abominations.
So do you think the Avatar movies are career-ending disasters??
Nicholas Cage's career wasn't ended. It went through a less than great patch but he paid off his debts and he's still impressive.
Fun fact: his VOD era is his favorite part of his acting career.
Then longlegs happened
Its Nicolas Cage, not the other way around. Took me a while to figure out how to spell his name correctly. No ´h´ allowed in this name. Best wishes from Iceland.
I thought Cage's best performance was Color Out Of Space, he was terrifying, creepiest moment was him putting his daughter into the attic with the mutated mother, while I see some thinking the voice he put on as funny, it worked for me in the story's context, the guy had an abusive father and the alien makes Cage have a split personality, that being his father.
@@ActivistBatonVIhe was also great in Mandy. Made me super uncomfortable 😂
“… and then there was Cats.” 🤣
Indiana Jones: Cats. Why'd it have to be cats?
Not the easiest broadway to translate to movie. 😔
I’m not sure The Crow spawned a “successful” franchise. Pretty much a one and done there.
True
Anyone who thinks Gods of Egypt and any Crow film other than the first is good makes Forrest Gump look like a genius.
Who cares if they’re good? They made money.
One name I'm surprised isn't on this list is Martin Brest. The guy directed classics like 'Beverly Hills Cop', 'Scent of a Woman' and 'Midnight Run' and his career was destroyed by the Ben Affleck/Jennifer Lopez picture 'Gigli', often regarded as one of the worst films of all time.
Brest is a good one and has some classics. The only reason he wasn't in this one was because the list already got unwieldy and there were a lot of directors I had to cut that I'll be talking about in future videos.
Good one!!
Yup, that's the first name I thought of when I saw the title of this video.
@@Syntopikonmaybe do a part two?
Brest got SCREWED HARD on Gigli. It was originally written and shot to be just a straight crime comedy but the studio demanded more focus on Ben and J-Lo's characters romantically because of their real-life romance at the time and thus turned it into a rom-com.
Fant4stic ruined Josh Trank.
First example in most people's minds.
No, Josh Trank ruined Josh Trank.
Yeah, but it's not like he had any carreer beforehand. He directed The Chronicle which is a low budget indie film and that's all.
Which is frustrating because by all accounts the version we got to see had precisely fuck all in common with the film Josh Trank wanted to make. It was butchered in the editing room.
Not Tranks fault
Cats isnt meant to be a movie. Its meant to be experienced live. Making it a movie draws attention to the fact that Cats really doesn't have a plot beyond cats singing about themselves.
Not to mention the CGI dips far too heavily into the uncanny valley of it all.
@@SyntopikonCats is what happens when somebody's repressed inner furry somehow clawed it's way out of the mind abyss, made a manifesto of destruction before getting locked back inside the mind abyss for all eternity
You saw God's of Egypt 5 times in theaters? I seriously question your judgment after that statement.
If they bring it back for a 10 anniversary thing in 2026, I'll make it 6-7 times 😤
He also said iRobot was one of the most memorable films of the 2000s for him.
For me, that wouldn't even be a memorable movie if it was released today. Let alone one of the most memorable of the 2000s when there were movies like Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine, Kill Bill, Inglorious Basterds, Oh Brother Where Art Thou, A Serious Man, No Country For Old Men, American Psycho, Donnie Darko, The Aviator, Coraline, Sin City, Collateral, City of God, Gladiator, Let The Right One In, Lord Of The Rings, and on and on and on....
@@GhostfaceDylanidk , as a 2000s teen i can tell you i robot was a much bigger thing than adaptation for instance. i mean its will smith fighting robots
"He even insulted Keanu Reeves" INSTANT CONDEMNATION
It's a good barometer for the Hollywood crowds decency level.
@@Syntopikon i mean there was a long period of time where insulting keanu was the normal thing to do. its honestly crazy he even became this protected actor considering most of hollywood was against him. insulting keanu now is maybe a good barometer but back then? no.
It's a shame that some of Hooper's bad films were successful. That's why he got Cats. Les Miserables wasn't a good film and or musical but because it was successful the studio drew the wrong conclusion and decided that he knew how to make musicals, which he clearly doesn't.
I wish he had done another historical miniseries. That might even be a way for him to make a return. John Adams is genuinely great.
Why isn't Les Miserable a good movie?? WTF ate you talking about?
I liked Les Miz but I also think some people (Universal in particular) got the wrong takeaway from it. Hooper's niche is period pieces that emphasizes the actors and that didn't change with Les Miz. Anne Hathaway was the runaway winner for an Oscar that year, Jackman was a no brainer nomination and I still feel Eddie Redmayne and Samantha Barks should've gotten nominations that year too. Cats has always been more about the spectacle which does not fit into Hooper's wheelhouse even a little bit and it showed.
@@bigbearkat2010 I'm still fuming that Hathaway got listed under Best Actress and not SUPPORTING ACTRESS. She is NOT the female lead in the movie; Amanda Seyfried is! Fatine only has that ONE song number before dying. Why give Hathaway an Oscar nom at all if she's barely in it?
@@FillmGeekOfDoom I feel like I should remind you Hathaway did indeed win for Supporting Actress that year, so you seem to be fuming over something that didn't happen.
Whoa whoa whoa, dude: did I hear you say that Nick Cage "ended his career"???Have you being paying attention???!!!
Fair enough. "Extended slump" would've been a better choice of words.
That surprised me too. Cage is a working actor. He's made some greats, he's made some flops, but he seems to be constantly working.
@@Syntopikondo not disrespect the king
Then longlegs happened
You guys are the ones that haven’t been paying attention lmao he’s near broke so he’s been playing in the dumbest small time movies
You forgot to mention Michael Cimino who made "Heaven's Gate" in 1980 and ruined his own career with it. It's one of the most infamous instances of career suicide.
Michael Cimino is a good one. I only didn’t add him because I covered Heaven’s Gate in a couple of previous videos.
In retrospect, Heaven’s Gate has been recognized as the incredible work that it is. What slowed him down was his inability to compromise and take on many projects that were offered to him.
Year of the Dragon (1985) is a masterpiece. Very fortunate to have seen the pre-release version shortly after his death at the New Beverly in Los Angeles
@@J.S.3259 Sure, Heaven's Gate is recognized NOW as being decent. But now is too late. John Carpenter's 1980s work is more beloved now than it was then, but the damage was done and he couldn't recover.
I saw Wolverine in "The Music Man" in NYC about a year ago. He is a very good singer. He also hung out in the alley signing autographs, taking photos with people, and shooting the bull after the show for about a half hour, which I thought was very cool.
He did the boy from oz on stage on broadway back in 2004, I met him backstage, lovely guy, great singer, I thought more people knew this
The fact this video was on my recommendation page after watching joker 2 😂
😭 Todd Philips might be on a future version of this list lol
Seeing Gore Verbinski on this list hurts more than Alex Proyas. A Cure for Wellness was very slept-on.
Now the opposite: Directors That Ended Movie Franchises.
Tom Hooper hasnt had any jobs because Sideways (an EXCELLENT music/score channel) downright destroyed the man. And for good reasons
I’m not so sure about your prediction of The Lone Ranger becoming a cult classic. I watched that film at around the perfect age and I can say even back then I found it dull. To each their own and all that but I highly doubt it’ll see any sort of revival in terms of public opinion.
I can't help but agree, I even went back and tried it again after I saw it being spoken of so highly here and found it to be very.... eh
it's possible that some of us who didn't watch the Lone Ranger til years later and had such low expectations thought that it was more deserving than those who viewed it upon it's release. I'm not saying all of us, nor am i saying it will definitely obtain cult status, but that's the thing with cult movies. they usually stem from critically and commercially disappointing movies, but no one can predict which ones. ever.
I think it will
@@julieb.5860 Definitely! I think Armie Hammer's career ending right after that for uhh unrelated reasons is another thing that is going to keep this from becoming a cult classic, though - it's got a lot going against it unfortunately. It will be interesting to see if it does or not!
Yeah, press F to Doubt, lol!
Cats ruined Tom Hooper because Tom Hooper ruined Cats.
brooooo Mousehunt is a masterclass in filmmaking honestly
I was outraged to see "Bone Tomahawk" in the thumbnail, I couldn't believe that horror classic could have ruined the Director's career. But then I realised it was actually "The Lone Ranger" so fair enough 🤷♂
Lol both Bone Tomahawk and Lone Ranger lost money but unlike the latter, Bone Tomahawk is an indisputably great movie (of course, it is I who is disputing people that drag Lone Ranger 😭)
If "Rango" is not a modern classic, it should be one of the funnest movies. Does it have all the tropes of Western films? Yes, but that was the idea. I'm no film nerd so I can't specify why it is a great film, but I thoroughly enjoy it and the story. It's straight out of the Hero's Saga.
I saw the film in theaters in 2011 as a kid and I was all in it for the action and for Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, CN etc but you're right it has the tropes of a western and a hero's journey. How it was made was instead of saying lines in a booth, they used emotion capture to get different expressions on the faces of the characters.
I'm inclined to agree. I like that it used the tropes of Westerns as it also provides an avenue for others to get interested in it. It's a fun film that's fantastically animated and, I think, still holds up very well.
Yeah I'm also one who thought Gods of Egypt was a lot of fun. Its been a long time since I last watched it but I remember it being a casual action adventure with a lot of CGI which wasn't great, but it was refreshing to have a movie about Egyptian mythology for once. The sad part is, executives look at how it turned out and go "audiences don't like Egypt anymore", and we won't see another movie touch on this subject probably for decades.
Happy to find someone else who enjoyed it!
Yeah, I hope that's not the lesson they take away from it. Egyptian history & mythology is fascinating (and AC: Origins ended up being one of my most recent Platinums, even though it's not really Ancient Egypt).
This dude liked Gods of Egypt 😂😂
I liked it too. Good popcorn movie but a rental most definitely
It's fun I liked it 😊
I liked it too. I'd rather watch it again than to watch I, Robot. It just looks more appealing to me.
I like trash movies than are still fun, but ngl gods of egypt was boring, it was the only time I fell sleep at the cinema
I’m not going to hate, you like what you like. Some people like a fun bad non sensical movie now and then. I really enjoyed the new Roadhouse movie
You can now add TODD PHILLIPS TO THIS LIST!!! What the hell was he thinking!!!
Todd Philips will probably be on a future list lol. That said, now I'm more interested to see if he can this ship. If he can, it might be one of the greatest comebacks in history.
@@Syntopikon You'd think from the amount of fan and critical backlash that Phillips had committed some sort of high treason. I haven't seen this much hatred and vitriol thrown at a film since... well, 2 weeks ago with Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis. But, Phillips and Joaquin Phoenix didn't want to do a sequel to Joker in the first place. Was this their way of a two fingered salute to fandom?
You do get a bit of that sense. I read in a THR article that the movie was basically borne of a dream that Phoenix had, and that Philips had final cut. He could basically do whatever he wanted, and WB was happy to foot the bill. They gave him the Cimino treatment and he ran with it (though Joker 2 is a far less interesting movie than Heaven's Gate).
@@Syntopikon Plus, it's not going to ruin Warner Bros., even though their parent company WBD are about $40 billion in debt even before Joker Folie a Deux opened. But, it'll make Warners take care when selecting future projects and giving unlimited power to directors.
@@Syntopikon As for Todd Phillips, between both Joker films, he was planning a Hulk Hogan biopic for Netflix with Chris Hemsworth attached. That seems to have fallen by the wayside.
That's an idea for a future video @Syntopikon, successful directors who left the big studios for streaming giants like Netflix, Amazon or Apple. Zack Snyder and David Fincher are two examples, both went to Netflix after being shafted by the studios.
17:11 one doesn't insult Keanu Reeves and not expect negative feedback
Gods Of Egypt was an absolute piece of crap. The Lone Ranger is also absolute crap. It's never going t be a cult classic.
@@franjaime200 The Lone Ranger had its moments
There’s tons of cult following for the Lone Ranger these days
They are both kinda cult classics already.
Lone Ranger is def a cult classic now
In the same way The Room is, not in the same way Rocky Horror is.
Another director you never hear of anymore is Stephen Sommers, people probably don't remember but he was huge during the 2000's. Even before that he made a couple of cult classics with his remake of The Jungle Book and Deep Rising. Of course his Mummy movies shot him to the big leagues and he was attached to several high-profile projects. Then G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra happened, not a-lot of information has come out about the filming process but I get the impression that it was a very troubled production and the final result basically killed Sommer's career. He only made one movie during the 2010's, a very low-budget called Odd Thomas and that's been it.
That's a good one, too. I think his problem ended up being that the budgets really got up there with Van Helsing & Rise of Cobra but the box office (and critical reviews) just weren't there. The Mummy movies made like 4x each on budgets below $100m, while Helsing & Cobra probably lost money.
You're right about the troubled production, I think, not least of all because I think Channing Tatum was forced into the role because of his contract with Paramount. Difficult to say whether he'll make another movie again.
What a shame. I actually thought Stephen Sommers was a good director and producer. While he’s not the greatest, he has made some entertaining films. He hasn’t direct any films for a long time. The Jungle Book (1994) I thought was a fantastic adventure film and one of the few good Disney live action remakes. The cult classic Deep Rising was a fun guilty pleasure sea monster film. The Mummy (1999) is definitely a fantastic adventure horror film and Sommers best film. The Mummy Returns was great sequel. Van Helsing was a great entertaining fun action horror monster film. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra was entertaining but Sommers weaker film. Both Van Helsing and G.I. Joe were not really failures but certainly not as successful as the first two Mummy films which they both grossed more than $400 million worldwide. Van Helsing did grossed $300 million worldwide which was considered a moderate success but not enough for a sequel. G.I. Joe has grossed $302 million worldwide which was also a mild success but not as huge success as the Michael Bay’s Transformers films though The Last Knight flopped hard.
Fun fact: Sommers was supposed to direct Night At The Museum, but got replaced because his version would've been darker and Fox wanted it to be more of a family-friendly comedy.
@@FillmGeekOfDoom He was also attached to a Jason and the Argonauts remake and came close to making a Tarzan film for Warner Bros.
@@Syntopikon While "G.I. Joe" and "Van Helsing" didn't perform as well as "The Mummy" they certainly weren't flops at the box office and likely made their money back on DVD, Bluray and linear TV which were big at that time. I also think the 2,5 x budget = break even formula wasn't the regular multiple during the 2000's, marketing spent surely was way lower back then and inflation has to be factored in.
Gods of Egypt is like Battleship, it's really stupid, but really really fun.
> really really fun.
My kinda movie 😎
This channel is an absolute gem and i can't believe it hasn't hit 30k subs yet. Keep up the amazing work.
I appreciate the kind words - thanks!
I still think of the alternate universe where we got Gore Verbinski's Bioshock
He definitely would've been a fitting director. Especially if he was doing full Ring. Regardless I think the person that Netflix choose to direct is just as much of a good choice. Hopefully they don't screw it up.
You should also put Ang Lee in this list as well because even though Ang Lee was one of my favorite movie directors, he hasn’t made any great films for a long time. Ang Lee was a wonderful acclaim director who had great success with movies like Pushing Hands, The Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman, Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hulk, Brokeback Mountain, Lust Caution, and Life of Pi. But he also have some failures like The Ice Storm despite critical acclaim, Ride with the Devil which was forgotten, Taking Woodstock also forgotten, Billy Lynn’s Halftime Walk Show which was forgotten as well, and Gemini Man which I agree is his worst. After the critical and box office failure of Gemini Man, Ang Lee has not direct another film.
Ang Lee is a good one and I'll be sure to include him in a future video. A lot of directors I have in this one, and a future one, are some of my favorites. Hurts to put them here, but it'd be dishonest to leave them out. Yeah, Life of Pi was probably his last good one. The only thing I remember from Bill Lynn's was I believe he tried experimenting with 48 or 60 FPS and it didn't turn out well. Then Gemini Man was a massive flop (despite starring Will Smith).
@@Syntopikon I can’t believe Gemini Man was such a hot property in the 90’s
Patty Jenkins is absent from this essay, Wonder Woman 1984 was a downgrade from the first one and her previous work. but the video is still great work man.
Glad you liked it! Patty Jenkins is an interesting case. 1984 was impacted by the pandemic as well, which could've hurt it. I think with her, its less that a movie ended her career and more that she and studios don't see eye-to-eye on how a movie should proceed. In her case, I think "creative differences" might actually be the issue. After Monster, it seemed like studios were ready to work with her but they were never able to find a project that both parties could agree to work on.
@@Syntopikon You may be right, We should also consider her Star Wars movie, which was greenlit but seems unlikely to be produced soon, if at all. Let's see what the future holds for her. In the meantime, I'll keep watching your videos. Greetings from Honduras!
I am a huge Alex Proyas fan, Knowing is one of the best Nic Cage films of the '00s , The Crow & Dark City are cult classics
Yup. Hope he gets more chances soon.
What’s wrong with The Thomas Crowne Affair remake? I think it’s one of the few remakes that feels original when watching and is just a fantastic watch.
I like it more than the original, which I found pretty forgettable. Brosnan and Russo have great chemistry and the Magritte heist set to Nina Simone's Sinnerman is just fantastic.
@@matman000000 That was a great scene. The soundtrack all around was 10/10. Sting wrapped it all up with Windmills of my mind.
Horton is one of the most hated directors/clients in the VFX community. I work in VFX and people who worked in Cats told me unimaginable horror stories. Cats is the perfect showcase of a movie that was destinied to fail because director has no understanding of the technology involved. And what's more, ge becomes abusive to the overworked, underpaid artists. Just go to his wiki page and read the VFX chapter. Whenever you see a movie with bad VFX do a research and you'll discover the same reasons every time.
He was a nightmare on His Dark Materials
I'm so pumped for Gore Verbinski's comeback with Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, it's got such a great cast and fun premise. Hopefully though it does well commercially, because like you said I don't think it was at all justified what happened to Gore following Lone Ranger. Weather Man is a severely undervalued black comedy for those who haven't seen it. I'm so impressed with how many genres Gore can tackle throughout his career.
It's such a crime we never got to see his Bioshock movie come to fruition, that seemed like a perfect match.
Definitely agreed. He’s my favorite director
Likewise. The guy's a great director and deserves another chance. He gave Disney a knock out hit AND franchise, which ought to get him some slack.
Wow, I had forgotten that he was attached the Bioshock movie even though thinking back, I did talk about it in a different video about movies stuck in development hell.
Another one is Jan De Bont who made Speed & Twister. Best movies of the 90s. He left directing after Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life as big studios like Paramount were taking over the film.
Jan De Bont is a good one and I was about to include him, but this list was already getting long so I'm putting him in a similar, future video. There are so many directors in this same position, it's wild/
Wish we got his Godzilla film. Paramount is a studio that keeps making every wrong decision. 😕
I say Speed 2 killed his career. I lost respect for him after that.
@@branagain Never saw it. Never will.
@@branagain I think it's a mixture of Speed 2 + Lara Croft, and the fact that the last 3 movies he directed also got smashed at the box office. The studio saw the writing on the wall.
Steven Spielberg has had several flops, but always managed to come back from them. However 'West Side Story' may have ended his career for good. He did produce 'The Fabelmans' afterwards, but that had a smaller budget and was a love letter to his childhood. I doubt he'll be able to make an epic movie again which will make a lot of money.
I'm not so sure, as he already has a project lined up at Universal - which he has a longstanding relationship with - and it's supposed to be an "event" film, which I take to mean big-budget.
I think Spielberg has generated enough money for the industry over the last 50 years to make producers willing to keep giving him a chance.
Steven Spielberg is still one of my all time favorite directors. He actually had more success in his career from 1970s-2010s. Jurassic Park (1993) is still my number one favorite movie of all time. However, it’s true. Spielberg hasn’t made any successful blockbusters since the last box office success Spielberg had was the 2018 science fiction adventure film, Ready Player One. After that, the last two Spielberg films like West Side Story and The Fablemans have failed really badly at the box office despite critical acclaim.
Yea speilburg lost it a long time ago. Anything he makes now is garbage, similar to Coppola
are you joking? spielberg will be making movies until he dies if he wants. He's steven spielberg
The ONLY one really missing here is Josh Trank. But I like how you bring up directors destroying there OWN careers. Maybe a part 2? Josh Trank destroyed himself .
Josh Trank is a good one and definitely one that destroyed himself. The only reason I didn't put him on this list is because I spoke about him in a couple of previous videos and I was trying to go for directors I hadn't covered as much or at all here.
I really enjoy the diverse filmography of Gore Verbinski, but I don't know why he thought "The Lone Ranger" was a good blockbuster film decision. A film like "The Mexican" is a studio comedy that doesn't get made all that often anymore, and even "A Cure for Wellness" is one that is very underrated for a Sci-Fi horror flick.
I think part of him doing The Lone Ranger was because it was something like Pirates of the Caribbean on land. Maybe he was hoping to do an epic western in that same vein.
TLR was one of those movies that was planned to be one of Disney's next big franchises that could potentially compete with the MCU. It also went through development hell and likely Disney cut a pretty attractive deal to Verbinski just to get it filmed and off the slate after they bought out Marvel Entertainment. The biggest issue it had in my opinion was the fact that it was a 2000s movie that came out in the 2010s, had it come out pre-2012 even it might have done better, but Marvel really changed the game with the Avengers to the point that when TLR came out a year later it felt dated, even the casual audience that would have gone to see it pre-Avengers just weren't interested, not to mention it's when intersectional politics started on their way to the mainstream, so discussions around cultural appropriation became a controversy that had the film come out a few years earlier, it might not have faced. I think Verbinski thought that maybe TLR would prove he still "got it", and that style of movie could compete with the new kids on the block.
Solid list, good video, but holy shit seeing Gods of Egypt in theaters 5 times is unhinged. I worked on that movie and have never even been able to sit through it once. It’s truly dreadful.
Hopefully, we will be able to add Joker 2 to this list.😊
Lol more likely than not though I’m interested in seeing how the dust settles.
The wide range of topics covered on this channel relating to film is amazing, absolutely essential to understanding both the creative and business aspects of a film production. Sincerely, an aspiring film student.
Glad you enjoyed it, and I hope you're able to make your own film soon!
I sincerely wish you the best and hope to see your future contributions to this form of art brother.
Words of advice.
1. George Lucas once mentioned that Soviet Russia has more freedom than American creators back in the days.
Today: soviet doesn't exist anymore and when neo-liberal forces won in the guide of "personal freedom" and hammers shitty propaganda into the platforms they own with easily disproven arguments like.
Unchecked capitalism will lead to greater and greater end products (even art) and how its fair while this creates another form of godkings with even more influence over every aspects of society.
unique game changing art is rare.
Shareholders wants art, to sell, it is affected by shareholders whom answers to shitty concepts as "quarterly reports", ceo bonuses, cut content, whip people into cutting corners and since they want the movies to become blockbusters and DO MORE WITH LESS!
You will also get to hear "oh i hear you, awesome idea, but THIS movie did THAT, could you marry the concepts?"
"Add stuff thst does well in focus test groups" etc
And in the end you will have to balance your arts integrity with the moneybag and frustration.
At some time you as any artist wether it be a clothes designer, video game creators, CGI expert, choreographer or film creator.
2. ALWAYS KICK UPWARDS. Dont blame the staff for shortage in quality when the budget is cut and release date pushed back for early release.
3. Dont fall into the"Star Wars trap"
Its another balancing act between
A) listen to fans but dont compromise too much.
Horror example: Ecumene Aztec.
A game about fighting spanish invaders whom literally wiped their whole culture off the map in real life history. The azstecs were different for sure, but genocide, pillaging and slavery is hardly great qualities either.
But the game was about a character sneaking around and freeing people in cages and stopping what objectively is an invasion and protecting the weak during this invasion.
Video game right-wingers did what they do best, they spent much of their free time unleashing their toxicity in any way they could in a coordinated campaign against the company whom, instead of sticking to their Guns, gave the players the option the become a traitor, adopting the whole "we come to civilize you by force, slavery, horrors, pillaging and colonization.
Well known example: star wars 7,8,9. Not respecting the source material and not pushing back on this enough to those with the moneybag whom only wanted to copy paste the earlier successes by riding a franchise it is VERY hard to fail with.
Bad writing, including legendary characters but without doing anyhing good with them, like killing characters off screen, throwing Mark Hamill the worst return ever etc
Useless choreography.
Well. The reasons behind the desicions that lead to this shit show is many. But blaming fans for not having good taste and calling the passionate fans with valuable criticism toxic by mixing them in WITH the toxic minority will not do you any favors.
There will always be hate watchers, racists, sexists etc whom will portray themselves as "us gamers" as the entirety of a fanbase, the trick is to recognize bad faith shit heads whom starts sweating when they hear rumors about inclusion.
They will never have ANY problem with white straight men taking over ANY role but they will not be satisfied with anything either for that matter.
For real, if you would give them Christian Bale as Black Panther, their concern would be "ok, but its SOOO liberal marxist left wing ultrafeminist propaganda that he has female fighters on his team, also, why does Wakanda have to be so full of africans ?"
(aka wakandian citizens)
(This type of people still think Africa is a country)
While im no fan of bad show horning in swaps, its important to show that representation matters, maybe not to them, but fuck them. While this in no way fixes societies msny problem with xenophobia, it shows what type of person you are. And fuck those who does not like what they see what kind pf person you are when you do your best to be kind, if they hate THAT, it shows more of what kind of people THEY are.
So, listen to fans, respect legacy, learn to discern hate watchers and as SOON AS POSSIBLE, hire people to do the discerning what is what and make sure they know what they are doing.
4. If ANYBODY calls you and wants to do a second movie based on the first live Action super Mario movie.
Dont do it. That movie not only features King coopa as a D Trump clone, it is CURSED!
Career ending movie period.
With that in mind. I wish you the best and hope we get to see what you are made of.
❤
I actually really enjoy The 13th Warrior. A unique take on Beowulf and no one does raw violence like McTiernan. Plus Banderas was coming off the success of Mask of Zorro and this film subverted expectations for his character.
It's why I find it hard to ascribe blame to pretty much anyone when a movie flops. Sometimes, it's just the way the wind blows. No one would've expected Paranormal Activity to make so much money, and the same is true for big budget flops. If anyone actually had it figured out, there would be no flops. About the most blame one can lay is that a movie shouldn't have been so expensive, but, then, that's on the studio.
I agree, I mean are there a couple cheesy spots and or lines yeah but I thought it was pretty good, I didn't know it was considered a flop
Les miserable was tideous to watch
The singing was TOO MUCH
The movie was long as hell also
Anne hathaway was barely in the movie even tho she was featured heavily in the trailers
That reminds of how Bryan Cranston was in the Godzilla trailers a lo as well but they hardly used him. A friend of mine loves Les Miserable, and I don't mind musicals, but it just wasn't for me as well.
Its just so pretentious😂@@Syntopikon
I mean if you think the musical is long, I would blame the source material, not Hooper and that goes for the singing too. And yeah weird how they would use one of their biggest stars in the marketing so much, particularly the most famous song in the musical.
I didn’t much care for it either.
It did spawn a pretty good YTP though
Cats is already a weird musical. It did not need to be in movie theaters.
Cats was terrible. But Tom Hooper was terrible before that. He just got lucky that no one noticed his flaws before. Patrick Willems does a terrific video essay on Cats, in which he points out the bizarre choices he made in Les Mis and Kings Speech. It’s like the old saying goes, even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Love Patrick Willems videos.
Film-wise, I think Hooper is fine, but that John Adams miniseries really puts him over for me. For me, it's just really that good.
2:06 Living in Greenwich, I can't help but see it every time it pops up in movies.
Holy crap, I didn't know Tom Hooper made all those excellent movies. I hope he's only in the Sin Bin and not finished. Thanks for the video.
Likewise!
The critical response to Hooper's Les Mis is what fully broke my faith in professional film criticism. It was borderline unwatchable and should have ended his career before he got his paws on Cats.
Upon seeing the 2018 Arrow Video release, I find it a missed opportunity that they didn't include Overnight as a bonus feature for The Boondock Saints: In a conflict between a visionary director and one of Hollywood's biggest supervillains, Troy Duffy somehow managed to be the greater of the evils by using his fame as justification for his self-destructive toxic behaviour. A classic cautionary tale and lesson in humility.
12:24 I just noticed this now but Davy Jones holds his hat down with his beard tentacles. What a cool detail.
Patty Jenkins is another great example. She started off great with Monster in 2003. Then it all came crumbling down for her after Wonder Woman 1984 in 2020.
Sorry, dude.
But Gods of Egypt and Lone Rangers are still terrible no matter what. 😁
I feel like Lone Ranger at least had a couple good set pieces (not nearly worth the budget they paid for them but still) but yes Gods of Egypt is hot garbage
Joker 2 is definitely gonna damage Todd Philips career. Although he's not really a great director imo.
I think he might end up more like Damien Chazelle: doing a smaller movie to get in the studios good graces. But one thing is certain: no final cut.
Still missing that butthole cut of CATZ.😅
John McTiernan’s 13th warrior has became a MASSIVE CULT CLASSIC and is hailed as the greatest Viking movie of all-time.
I don't think The Lone Ranger will likely ever become a cult film; that movie is so tonally jacked and the action is way too over the top for a western. However, I do think A Cure for Wellness might have a shot at cult movie status someday. That flick had some flaws, but overall I thought it was fairly original and kept me hooked.
I loved The Lone Ranger....I will argue that anyone who appreciates cinema through the ages loves that movie. Unfortunately it was misunderstood by the general audiences when it came out
I think if it didn't have as many behind the scenes issues, that also could've helped. Alas, the price just kept going up.
Joker 2. Add Todd Phillips to this list.
Lol probably in a few years. I hope he has his next movie lined up, because Joker 2 has been brutal.
Dude I'm really glad I found your channel months ago. You've always got interesting and varied subjects to cover. Some I'm aware and some that I'm not.
I'll never forget my experience with Cats, I was left dumbfounded by the whole thing. I didn't even hate it, it was just a bizarre experience that was hard to compute. 😅😂
Glad you've enjoyed it over the last few months!
I think that's how a lot of people felt with Cats lol. I think it was a sort of interesting experiment, but wildly expensive. Tom Hooper is a smart guy and all of his prior productions were, by comparison, not as reliant on special effects to the degree that Cats was. I think if he tried a different musical, it could've turned out better.
Gods of Egypt was not fun
Them be fighting words 😤
"Everything was good, except the movie" hahaha love that review.
And now, Megalopolis will end Francis Ford Coppola's career 😞
Covering in an upcoming video. My contention, though, is that his filmic career pretty much ended after Dracula. Megalopolis is just an extension of 30 years of flops, except on a much bigger scale (and with $140,000,000 of his own money 😭)
Finally someones who agree that *I, Robot* is a fun and now classic movie that turned better with time! 🗿🍷
I've loved cats my whole life, but when I saw Cats, I got ailurophobia.
Consistently cranking out killer videos that I love listening to while working on things (though your videos distract me every time). Fantastic work!
Glad you enjoyed it - thanks for the kind words!
You saw gods of Egypt 5 times 😂
Lol yup. Loved that movie.
The Wachowskis (formerly known as the Wachowski brothers) should also be in this list as well. The Wachowskis had wonderful success with the first three Matrix films. However, it all changed when they direct other big budget science fiction films such as Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas, and Jupiter Ascending which were all flopped so badly at the box office.
I actually liked Speed Racer that I saw it twice in the movie theater. The mainstream media tore this film to shreds for no reason and dissuaded the public from viewing it. Come to think of it, there's a scene in the film that criticizes the mainstream media and that most likely set them off to sink the film.
@@sjdrifter72 I respect your opinion. For me, I thought was an okay movie. Not bad but not that great. Could have been better. I think another reason why Speed Racer bombed was because it was overshadowed by Iron Man. Then the rest of the summer of 2008, everybody went out to see other blockbusters at that time like The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Kung Fu Panda, The Incredible Hulk, Get Smart, Wall E, Wanted, Hancock, Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Mamma Mia, and of course The Dark Knight, one of my all time favorite movies as well as The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and Tropic Thunder. So yeah. They pick really bad timing to release Speed Racer.
The Wachowski's are an interesting case because The Matrix: Resurrections was pretty recent and while it flopped, I'm not sure if it ended their careers. I say that because none of the movies since Speed Racer have made any money yet they still seem to be able to get fairly large budgets. I would've said their careers were over at different points yet I keep being surprised.
I'm looking forward to when Patrick Willems finally does his Speed Racer video this year.
2008 was definitely a packed year. I think the fact that wide release happened literally between Iron Man and Prince Caspian, followed a few days later by Indiana Jones, worked against it. It was clobbered on both sides from the jump.
Somebody should hire Tom Hooper to film a live action remake of Disney's Robin Hood.
I cannot fathom how the Academy loved Les Misersbles. You watch that movie you would think this guy should never make a musical again. But then they gave him another musical. What the hell?
The Academy is, for reason's I personally don't get, partial to musicals. If I had to guess, it's because the actors branch is the largest and musicals are pretty much always about the actors (+ the set design). I think nominations for things like Costume Design, Makeup, and Production design were warranted, but not Best Picture.
@@Syntopikon that’s a great point. And you’re right about the Oscar for best hairstyle but the other nominations were actually for best supporting actress and sound mixing. Making it live (while some of your actors are dehydrated or have mucus running down their throat) doesn’t do Les Misérables justice. It’s a grand story about the city of Paris, why would you want your interpreters to be at their weakest while singing something so grand? Sorry, I really have a passionate love for Les Misérables and Hooper really screwed it up.
I hope Tom Hooper and Gore Verbinski make comebacks. Also, Dominic Sena’s Kalifornia is what Natural Born Killers should have been. But that’s just me. Also, I haven’t seen either of those movies in 20 years but that’s the impression I remember.
6:01 Proyas is currently in the process of developing a film adaptation of R.U.R, a 1920 Czech play that has become a notable piece of science fiction. It's notable for introducing the word "robot" into modern culture. Having read it, it's quite innovative for its time, and introduced many themes seen in science fiction today, although today many say it hasn't aged well (I personally can't say I agree with that). I'm interested in how Proyas will direct it, and hopefully it will be his directorial comeback.
Proyas is directing a sci-fi satire R.U.R now, but it's a pretty low budget movie.
I hope he's able to get it done. I think a return to a low budget is a good way to go. Hopefully he's able to find distribution.
The director of Dark City and The Crow is making an adaptation of Čapek's R.U.R.? Consider me cautiously hyped.
Proyas definetly deserves that comeback vehicle
Dominic Sena's 'Kalifornia' is one of my favorite Brad Pitt movies that no one ever talks about.
How has M.Night Shamalon not been ruined yet?
He's an interesting case - he's been self-funding his movies, in part or whole, since 2015. He was ruined, but essentially brought himself back.
Tom Hooper deserves to go to director’s jail.
His name is poison now.
Anything else he does will be prefaced “The guy who made all the decisions on Cats.”
If they remake “The Dam Busters” without the original theme music, I’m not interested!
James Wong should also be in this list because the last movie he directed was that terrible abomination called Dragonball Evolution. James Wong was known for directing other films like Final Destination 1 and 3 and The One starring Jet Li. After Dragonball Evolution was a critical and box office failure, James Wong never direct another movie afterwards. James Wong is so much better as a writer and producer which is why he has worked on The X-Files tv series and served as one of the executive producers of American Horror Story.
While Dragonball Evolution was a flop (I saw it in theaters and was not a fan), I feel like he's someone that should get a chance. The overall budget was pretty small and it still managed to double it. But man, the guy hit it out of the park with American Horror Story.
@@Syntopikon True. American Horror Story is a wonderful horror anthology tv series. Although it’s true that the god awful Dragonball crap Evolution had a budget of $30 million, it’s still a box office bomb since it only took $55 million worldwide. If a film had a budget of $30 million, it needs to grossed more than $90 million or $100 million to break even.
He should be directed & handled death note adaptations seeing his career on the x files & AHS
If we talk about movies that ended Directors careers, Joker 2 is one of them, actually the film director Todd Phillips said he was done after making Joker 1 & 2, and also it's not his fault if the movie didn't succeed as the first one, they forced clearly him to do a sequel no one wanted.
Philips is an interesting case. He and Phoenix didn't want to do the sequel, but he also ended up getting final cut so whatever we see on screen is pretty much entirely attributable to him. Warner Bros. should've been happy that they caught lightning in a bottle with the first Joker and just given Philips a development deal.
Heaven’s Gate ended Cimino’s career but you’ve already covered that film on this channel.
Yup. That's the only reason I left him off. He is, undoubtedly, one of the most epic flameouts in Hollywood history.
I guess I shouldn't be that surprised that the rom com genre gets neglected in this video. When we look at the 2000s, (another) peak comedy decade, there were 2 directors competing for being the best commercial comedy directors in the same way Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich were the best commercial action directors. Robert Luketic and Andy Tennant. Robert Luketic started strong with "Legally Blonde", putting Josh Duhamel on the map with "Win a Date with Tad Hamilton", Jane Fonda's return to acting in "Monster-in-Law" and the very big success "The Ugly Truth" starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler. Naturally, a Katherine Heigl follow up "Killers" was made a year after but to a critical and commercial failure. But it was the Tech Thriller "Paranoia (2013)" that ended Robert Luketic's career. Andy Tennant also started with a Reese Witherspoon rom com "Sweet Home Alabama" although arguably he peaked with the follow up "Hitch". Then he tried to recandle the spark between Kate Hudson and Matthew Mcconaughey in "Fool's Gold". I think that was a commercial success. Anyway, the movie "The Bounty Hunter" again with Gerard Butler, ended his career for a long time. "The Bounty Hunter" is incredibly derivative even compared to "Killers" from his peer Mr. Luketic. Doesn't help "Knight and Day" was released that same year also :I
Todd Philip's joker 2
The remake of Thomas Crown Affair is one of my favorite movies! I like the original too but that remake is fantastic.
You can add Joker 2 on this list now
😭 I'm interested to see how Philips adapts to this. I was thinking of adding him in a future video, but I get the feeling that I want to let the dust settle a bit first.
Up to this day I don't know how Ep.IX Rise of Skywalker didn't derail J.J. Abrams.
He's involved in a LOT of projects.
For all the negative reception it got, "The Rise Of Skywalker" still turned a profit. So the stockholders didn't care if people liked it or not.
@@asurlybarber3620 That's a fact, and also It signalled that Star Wars as a brand, is indeed so powerful that no matter the how bad the quality of a product, it will still bring profit.
Mouse Hunt is one of my favourite films. The rest of the things Verbinski did, didn't interest me at all.
That's part of the trouble with getting a big Hollywood career. Lots of directors just end up churning out Director For Hire pap, which rarely has the elan of the personal and idiosyncratic.
Even the casting of Mouse Hunt was wonderfully off beat. Compare that with the casting required for the Lone Ranger - a big yuck and yawn.
Indeed, Johnny Depp's career was largely ruined by studios suddenly deciding he was a bankable actor for bland blockbusters. When he was doing things like The Dead Man, The Libertine, and Ed Wood...he was great. But The Tourist, Mordecai, the Lone Ranger..dear god.
This brings up the ever-important topic of: money vs creativity in art. Movies are such massive projects, they need a lot of money (even mid-budget films are tens of millions, which most creatives, even if they could afford it, don't want to risk). I think a return to the system of one-for-us, one-for-you is overdue. Let directors, actors, etc. make one movie designed to put people in seats for the studio, and let the studio fund one of their passion projects. If that project is a hit, all the better.
@@Syntopikon Yes, indeed.
I believe Steven Soderberg used to work on that basis..the one for them, one for me. As did George Clooney.
That does make a great deal more sense.
Billy Wilder seemed to do something similar, though he was, of course, operating fully in that old Studio System world.
But he's push out a Seven Year Itch - hugely successfully, truly awful, and then be able to do Sunset Boulevard or Lost Weekend.
I saw a bit of an interview with him when he was quite old, but still very chatty and sharp. The interviewer was being a bit too oleaginous and said something about "you only made great films" . Wilder laughed in shock and retorted along the lines of "I've made so much garbage, and some that don't embarrass me. It's just a job."
Verbinski has made so many very successful films that I hope being saddled with the Lone Ranger didn't cost him personal money.
My daughter was raised on Mouse Hunt, so Mr Verbinski has a special place in my heart, always.
Your narration of the section on Troy Duffy was so amusing, I laughed so loudly I frightened my poor cat.
Someone should make about film about him!
I'll never understand why "Last Action Hero" is a cult classic. It should just be a classic, full stop.
I am honestly baffled that Halloween Ends didn't end David Gorden Green's career considering how AWFUL that movie was imo.
It's either that or his new Exorcist disaster
Horror movies have comparatively smaller budgets so the stakes are also lower
Gods of Egypt rode the curtails of Exodus God & Kings, the Ridley Scott Egyptian period piece released 2 years prior that also had an unapologetically- Caucasian cast. By the time GoE came out viewers everywhere basically said “again?next”. The film was a train wreck to everyone involved.Brenton Thwaites was on his way to becoming a new “it” boy in movies,but after GoE and Pirates5 it’s been nothing but radio silence for him.I don’t think he’s starred in a major film since.
How on earth do you go from The Kings Speech to Cats. I guess his choice to have live singing on set in Les Mis was a sign of things to come 🫤 He got pretentious that’s for sure
It's a wild jump, even considering Les Mis because Cats was entirely CGI and he hadn't worked with it on that level before. He should've done some other musical lol
Dark City is one of my all time favorites, a unique movie
And Boondock Saints 1 is a lot of fun, glad you gave it some love
Right on. Watching Boondock Saints in theaters soon, hopefully. 25th anniversary showing 🤘
I'm surprised Josh Trank, Bryan Singer, or even the supposed "Spielberg-clone" JJ Abrams received no mention on this list, as they've all fallen from grace with the world at their fingertips.
Singer & Trank I've talked about in other videos, which is why I left them off on this one - but both certainly fit.JJ Abrams is an odd case as he's got like a dozen things in the pipeline, but just isn't directing them. So still quite active.
Bryan Singer’s career didn’t die because of making a bad movie, his career died because of his sexual assault allegations. JJ Abrams career didn’t die. It takes him years to direct anything new.