Films that you personally think, genuinely hurt a director's career

[klauswhereareyou]

Frank Oz: The Stepford Wives (2004)
John Carpenter: Ghosts of Mars (2002)
John Landis: Beverly Hills Cop 3 (1994)

[Todd Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by klauswhereareyou

I think it's interesting to see where Tarantino and Rodriguez careers have gone after Grindhouse (2007).

Despite its financial failure, Grindhouse was a minor diversion which didn't have a negative effect on either career. Rodriguez career was already on a downward trajectory while with Inglorious Basterds and Django Unchained Tarantino made his two most successful films since Pulp Fiction

[SymbioticFunction]

Originally Posted by JeffTheMovieGuy

To me Deathproof was too "clean" to be a "Grindhouse" film. Rodriguez perfectly added scratches, dust and cigarette burns to Planet Terror while Tarantino's half looks amazingly clear.

Rodriguez may have overdone it. I used to go to one-off screenings of fairly rare exploitation (or 'grindhouse') films in the late 90's/early 00's, and I never once saw a film that looked like that. Death Proof does actually have quite a bit of damage added.

Originally Posted by Richard Graham

I would offer The Lovely Bones as Peter Jackson's career suicide.

Peter Jackson that's been earning countless millions on subsequent big budget Tolkien fantasy adaptations, that have also been box office successes?

An Unexpected Journey. Budget - $200 million. Worldwide box office - $1,017,003,568.

The Desolation of Smaug. Budget - $225 million. Worldwide box office - $960,366,855.

The Battle of the Five Armies. Budget - $250 million. Worldwide box office - $866,645,262.

[Todd Tomorrow]

Popeye put Robert Altman's career on the back burner for a decade till he made a comeback with The Player.

The disaster and deaths on the set of The Twilight Zone - The Movie and the resulting lawsuits badly impacted on Joe Dante's career.

The Night of the Hunter, now a bonafide classic, was so poorly received, Charles Laughton never got to direct another film.

One From the Heart went so badly over budget (from 2 million to 25 million), it bankrupted Francis Ford Coppola and most of his subsequent career choices were made to dig his way out of the depth incurred.

Heaven's Gate wrecked Michael Cimino's career.

[SymbioticFunction]

Originally Posted by Todd Tomorrow

The disaster and deaths on the set of The Twilight Zone - The Movie and the resulting lawsuits badly impacted on Joe Dante's career.

Landis?

[klauswhereareyou]

My point with Grindhouse was that it was a huge commercial flop (75 million dollar budget, made like 25 million maybe), Tarantino seemed to learn from his mistakes with the movie (maybe it's not just enough to emulate old genre/b-movie styles, gotta put a little more meat on the bones) whereas Rodriguez became even more entrenched in making genre/b-movies for the sake of making them, Machete being the only successful one.

[JimDiGriz]

Originally Posted by Todd Tomorrow

"Alan Smithee" only directed the extended cut of Dune, Lynch's name is still of the theatrical cut.

Id still love to see that extended cut on blu-ray in a decent form of course.

[klauswhereareyou]

Landis actually didn't have too hard of a time getting a movie made until after Beverly Hills Cop 3 (1994). With that he proved he couldn't even make a decent Eddie Murphy movie anymore, and most of his later films were either barely released or went directly to video/dvd. From Twilight Zone the Movie to Beverly Hills Cop 3 he directed 7 movies plus the Thriller and Black or White Michael Jackson music videos.

[wonkavision]

Originally Posted by Todd Tomorrow

Popeye put Robert Altman's career on the back burner for a decade till he made a comeback with The Player.

And then right back onto the back burner.

[Todd Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by SymbioticFunction

Landis?

John Landis, sorry for the brain fart.

[klauswhereareyou]

Altman's 90's/00's resurgence was due in large part to the fact that the indie movie scene of the time lended itself to the types of movies he liked to make (acting/writing heavy affairs).

[Todd Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by wonkavision

And then right back onto the back burner.

Short Cuts and Gosford Park were very well received and are counted among his best films. He was a director who took artistic risks, so his career always went up and down, but Popeye ended his chances of a mainstream Hollywood career.

[Lord Method Man]

Heaven's Gate effectively ended Michael Cimino's career and the whole "New Hollywood" thing in general.

[Todd Tomorrow]

The double whammy of Daisy Miller and At Long Last Love, both made in a failed attempt to make the only moderately talented Cybill Shepperd a star, took Peter Bogdanovich off the A-list.

The financial failure of the costly Sorcerer and the controversy around Cruising didn't do William Friedkin any good.

Many of the great 70s directors eventually stumbled with projects which were considered self-indulgent follies (see also Coppola, Cimino and Altman who I've already mentioned)

Spielberg's 1941 was his folly and at the time considered a potentially ruinous career choice, but he bounced back with Raiders and E.T.

[jbloggs]

Originally Posted by Revolution 9

For M. Night Shyamalan...

Lady in Water, his first truly bad film.

The Last Airbender, his most disastrous flop ever.

Originally Posted by PLG1962

Haven't seen either but did Last Airbender kill his career has he made a film since

2013 After Earth
2015 The Visit (Post production)
2015 Labor of Love (Filming)

[demonknight]

Originally Posted by jbloggs

2013 After Earth
2015 The Visit (Post production)
2015 Labor of Love (Filming)

You're missing the point. The title said hurt, not killed.

[Todd Tomorrow]

John Carter killed off animation director Andrew Stanton's live action career. It wasn't just that the film was a failure, there also was a lot of bad publicity around how he mishandled the promotion of the film. He went back to Pixar to direct a sequel to his own Finding Nemo.

Southland Tales sank Richard "Donnie Darko" Kelly's career.

Frank Capra considered It's a Wonderful Life ruinous to his career. The film was both a financial and critical flop and it only became popular over subsequent decades via TV showings.

[Todd Tomorrow]

Originally Posted by demonknight

You're missing the point. The title said hurt, not killed.

He didn't miss the point, he was answering a specific question.

[SymbioticFunction]

Joseph Sargent's Jaws: The Revenge from 1987:

It's genuinely difficult to believe that this came from the same man that once gave us White Lightning and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Universal gave the project less than 9 mths to produce and create but that still doesn't excuse it's sheer awfulness. According to wikipedia, associate producer and production manager Frank Baur said during the filming, "This will be the fastest I have ever seen a major film planned and executed in all of my 35 years as a production manager." The fourth Jaws entry was an unmitigated disaster and it has just a 0% score on Rotten Tomatoes. After this film, Joseph Sargent would work on television projects only.

[wonkavision]

Originally Posted by Todd Tomorrow

Short Cuts and Gosford Park were very well received and are counted among his best films. He was a director who took artistic risks, so his career always went up and down, but Popeye ended his chances of a mainstream Hollywood career.

True, but I didn't really like Short Cuts or Gosford Park. Altman should have never been attached to Popeye, it was an odd choice. Not sure why Altman took it either, unless he is a Popeye fan. Altman could never be mainstream hollywood though, especially with your point that he is a director that always took risks and generally made films that were anything but mainstream and/or easily accessible. Gee, even the way he did Popeye was not mainstream. Although, I actually really like Popeye.