It’s the height of ignominy: you’ve shepherded a movie into production, are shooting with the cast and crew when suddenly you’re asked to go for a meeting upstairs where you get the boot.
But for all directors who fear they might be next, don’t worry – it’s happened to the best of them.
Richard Donner – ‘Superman II’ (1980)
Donner’s firing from the second ‘Superman’ was a sad and baffling decision considering the first one (he’d shot the films back-to-back, pausing on the second while the first one was released) was such a smash hit critically and commercially.
But wrangling and arguments with the producers, particularly over Marlon Brando’s wage bill, meant that Donner was ditched for Richard Lester, a decent director who was better known for comedic movies like ‘A Hard Day’s Night’.
That meant Donner’s expert handling of tone was ignored and the majority of the film was reshot much to the chagrin of the cast. The original helmer finally got to unveil his cut of the movie in 2006.
Richard Stanley – ‘The Island of Dr. Moreau’ (1996)
Australian Stanley was a talented prospect with a gift for the visually striking when he signed up to bring HG Wells’s book to the big screen.
Four years of development followed. But when it came to shoot, he wasn’t used to dealing with Hollywood egos, particularly Val Kilmer whose strange behaviour and refusal to follow direction led to Stanley’s firing after just three days of production.
And that’s not even counting Marlon Brando and his creative choice to wear a bucket on his head.
Seasoned pro John Frankenheimer (‘The Manchurian Candidate’) came on board and also clashed with his stars, while the absence of a script meant the cast were frequently adlibbing entire scenes.
It essentially torpedoed Stanley’s career, though he did manage to watch his dream project being filmed – by sneaking back onto set and getting the make-up department to cover him in prosthetics so he could appear as a human-animal hybrid extra. It was that kind of movie.
James Cameron – ‘Piranha II: The Spawning’ (1981)
Cameron himself has called it the “finest flying piranha movie ever made”. But while the film has subsequently been credited to the ‘Avatar’ director, it’s difficult to know exactly how much of this debut effort was actually his.
Emerging from the Roger Corman stable, Cameron was fired from the film by its producer Ovidio Assinitis, who himself directed some of it, before the neophyte director broke into the edit suite to try and finish his cut where he was caught and told to skedaddle.
Brenda Chapman – ‘Brave’ (2012)
Chapman was supposed to be Pixar’s first female feature director and it was she who developed the story of a young Scottish girl and her mother from her own idea.
But she ended up being taken off the movie a year before it was released – during production in animation terms – for reasons that remain a bit opaque.
It’s one of the few blips in the mostly excellent history of Pixar, especially when Chapman spoke out against her former employers, accusing animation of being a boys club (she was replaced by a man).
Via yahoo.com