14 Times Directors Were Fired During The Making Of A Movie, From Three Days In To Three Weeks Before Wrap

Zack Synder said "I just hope I can wipe that version out of existence" about Joss Whedon's Justice League.

Producing a movie is rarely smooth sailing, but it makes it even more complicated when you have to change the director while shooting.

ABC

Making such a huge change is bound to disrupt things, but it can also be for the better (Jaws) – so let's check out these 15 movies that had a director shift!

1. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

If you look up Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, you'll see the director as Gareth Edwards, which is true – however, many consider Edwards' version of the film to have been saved by "ghost director" Tony Gilroy. 

Gilroy was brought in to make some emergency fixes after the director's cut – and thus did a lot of reshoots. On the state of the movie when he arrived, Gilroy had this to say: “[it was] just in so much terrible, terrible trouble that all you can do is improve their position.”

There are differing opinions about how much of the film or plot was altered by the reshoots. The President of Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy, claimed, “There’s nothing about the story that’s changing.” Meanwhile, Ben Mendelsohn, who played Orson Krennic recalled there being "enormous differences" in 20-30 scenes due to the rendering. 

Check out some of the altered and deleted scenes:

youtube.com

2. Superman II

Warner Bros.

Richard Donner, the original director of Superman II was simultaneously filming that and Spiderman: The Movie when he was removed from being in charge of Superman. Financial disagreements put a rift in his relationship with the producers and he was fired. The problem was that he'd already filmed around 75% of the movie. 

In came Richard Lester, who, wanting to put his own stamp on the movie, decided to reshoot most of Donner's work. Despite the film's upheaval, it did relatively well at the box office – but many believe Donner's original film, which was released in 2006, was the better version. 

3. Brave

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

It's more common for animated films to have a higher turnaround of creators behind the scenes, but it was "devastating" for Brenda Chapman when she was taken off Brave. Not only had she been working on the film for six years, but it was actually her idea in the first place, and based on her relationship with her daughter. 

The reason for Pixar going in a different direction was "creative differences", with her not wanting to make changes to the story she'd envisioned. Mark Andrews stepped in, and they were both credited as directors. 

Even though it was hard for Brenda to leave her project, she said that the final cut of the movie ended up being closely aligned with her initial vision. She said: "I saw it a few months before it came out, and I was really pleased that they had gone back to my work. I had seen a version earlier that had lost a lot of it. That they had done after I left – and that had frustrated me a lot."

4. Justice League

Warner Bros. Pictures

Justice League may be one of the most famous instances of a director leaving during post-production, chiefly because of the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut movement that went on for years. 

Zack Snyder departed the movie after a family tragedy that, understandably, left him with no energy to continue, and the need to be with his family. Joss Whedon took over the film's production, but it didn't stop fans and DC-universe actors from pestering WarnerMedia to release Snyder's four-hour version, which they eventually accepted. 

Synder himself was clearly not a big fan of Whedon's version, saying before his cut's release: "I just hope I can wipe that version out of existence with what you see in March."

You can see the distinct differences here:

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5. Gone With The WInd

Loew's Inc

Despite being one of the most successful and critically acclaimed films of all time, the production of this controversial classic was full-on chaos. We speak of the disruption that a change of director can cause a film, but Gone With The Wind had five different directors and 15 writers. 

Fuelled by Benzedrine and peanuts, producer David O. Selznick would stay up all night hiring, firing, ordering rewrites, and causing general havoc to the filmmaking process.

The most poignant firing was the director George Cukor which was said to be due to "creative differences", but some claim was actually the result of an antigay outburst by movie star Clark Gable about being directed by George. 

In order to appease the antigay demands of Gable, Selznick lured director Victor Fleming from the shooting of The Wizard of Oz to direct him, "firing" George in the process. In reality, though, George carried on coaching Olivia de Havilland and Vivien Leigh in secret. 

6. The Wizard of Oz

Loew's Inc

Talking of troubled productions, The Wizard of Oz was also famously chaotic and problematic and had a director merry-go-round to contend with. When Richard Thorpe was fired, he was replaced by none other than George Cukor, who was, at that time also filming Gone With The Wind – are you keeping up? 

George wasn't there for long but did make some important decisions, one of which was to change Dorothy's hair colour (it was initially blonde). George was replaced by the director who would direct most of the film, and go on to replace him again in Gone With The Wind, Victor Fleming.

As you can tell, Fleming was seen as a safe pair of hands to take over a troubled project, but those hands were required on the other disorderly production, Gone With the Wind. When David O. Selznick summoned him, King Vendor took the reins and was left to direct the Kansas scenes including Over the Rainbow (which almost didn't make the final cut) and the famous tornado scene.

7. Tombstone

Buena Vista Pictures Distribution

Despite having two different directors, many, including costar Val Kilmer, seem to credit Kurt Russel with being at the helm of making Tombstone. When screenwriter and director Kevin Jarre was released from his directing duties, it was Kurt who took on responsibilities, as Val put it:  

"I watched Kurt sacrifice his own role and energy to devote himself as a storyteller, even going so far as to draw up shot lists to help our replacement director, George Cosmatos, who came in with only two days prep.”

So, even though George Cosmatos stepped in and is credited with directing, in the words of Val Kilmer, "Kurt is solely responsible for Tombstone‘s success, no question.”

8. Thor: Dark World

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

When Marvel Studios dropped director Patty Jenkins from her role in charge of the Thor film over a "lack of clarity" and "creative differences", it shocked the whole of Hollywood, including Natalie Portman. Natalie, who had wanted the studio to hire Patty, was naturally unhappy with the decision to drop her but was contractually obliged to stick with the project. 

Although many critics at the time pointed out the underrepresentation of female directors of top-grossing movies, Patty didn't want the dismissal to be seen as gender-related. She insisted it was creative differences, saying: “I did not believe that I could make a good movie out of the script that they were planning on doing. It would have looked like it was my fault.”

The studio went with Alan Taylor, of Game of Thrones to take up the project. But he too felt constrained by the corporate demands, production deadline, and unfinished script. The film would turn out to be one of Marvel's worst-rated, even though it was a box-office success, but Taylor has expressed desires to release a Snyder-Esque director's cut of his true vision of the movie. 

9. Ant-Man

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Sticking with creative freedom and Marvel, let's head to Ant-Man. While the nuts and bolts of filming weren't fully in motion when British director Edgar Wright up and left Ant-Man, it was a colossal shake-up, as he'd been attached to the project for eight years! 

While he obviously didn't spend the whole eight working on the movie, he'd done a lot of work as writer-director for the film, but it was when they changed his role to just director, not writer, that he decided it wasn't for him. 

His reasoning, he explained, was the lack of freedom over the film, saying: “I think the most diplomatic answer is I wanted to make a Marvel movie but I don’t think they really wanted to make an Edgar Wright movie.”

As much of the script had come from Edgar and Joe Cornish, both of them received writing and "Story by" credits, but it was Peyton Reed who went on to direct Ant-Man and the sequel. 

10. The Island of Dr. Moreau

New Line Cinema

This ridiculous movie is probably more famous for its off-screen action than what happens on-screen. The movie was an adaptation of HG Wells' book, which followed a scientist who secretly conducted biological experiments creating human-animal hybrids. 

The messy, egotistical behaviour of stars Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer set the whole production off to a chaotic start which saw director Richard Stanley fired after just three days.

Director John Frankenheimer came in to try and get a handle on the situation (unsuccessfully), but it wasn't the last they'd see of Stanley, who was now living isolated in the outback. Due to the many prosthetics the actors wore, the fired director was able to sneak back onto the set disguised as a half-man-half-dog character...

Such bizarre behaviour seemed to be a theme of the whole filming process, as Actor Neil Young described, saying: “It all started to go horribly pear-shaped. It disintegrated into this madness in tropical Queensland, with all these people dressed up as weird creatures. Everyone was just going a bit coco, I think.” 

The movie is considered to be one of the worst ever, although Stanley was eyeing up a "weirdly metatextual" TV series of it which (maybe for the better?) never came to fruition. 

11. Bohemian Rhapsody

20th Century Fox

Naturally, the idea of an amicable separation of director/film/producer is pretty far-fetched, and like most occasions, there are varying versions of why Bryan Singer was fired. Fox put it down to “the “unexpected unavailability of Bryan Singer”, while some sources suggested Rami Malek had found him unprofessional. 

Singer himself claimed that Fox refused to let him take time to care for a sick family member. He said: "Unfortunately, the studio was unwilling to accommodate me and terminated my services. This was not my decision and it was beyond my control.”  

Dexter Fletcher came in to finish off the movie, but Singer was still credited as the director, as he left with only three weeks of shooting remaining.

12. Spartacus

Universal International

Before Stanley Kubrick joined what would go on to be an iconic movie, Anthony Mann was in charge for a grand total of three weeks. A lot of this had to do with the star Kirk Douglas. Kirk didn't even want Mann in the first place, but the execs thought his work on westerns would benefit the movie. 

After just a week of filming, the two had gotten into a huge disagreement, and it was Kirk who eventually fired Mann, saying that he was "scared of the scope of the picture." 

Despite Douglas admitting he never wanted Mann, and firing him so soon into shooting him, he said that Mann took the dismissal well and there was no hard feeling between the two.

13. The Good Dinosaur

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Even though directorial shifts are more commonplace in animated movies (Ratatouille and Cars 2 had the same issue), Pixar was highly scrutinised for axing the original director, Bob Peterson, and promoting Peter Sohn. Bob, who came up with the concept and had been working on it for a few years described the Pixar dictum to be "fail as fast as you can." 

Part of the scrutiny came from not only the changing of the director but also the rebooting of the entire story to make it simpler which, ironically, delayed the film's release. The final product, despite giving us one of the most heartbreaking moments in cinema history (according to me), didn't reach the heights that they were going for, maybe because it was just so damn sad. 

14. Jaws

Paramount Pictures

Okay, this wasn't technically during production, but the reason that we got Stephen Speilberg's Jaws is pretty much due to the original director, Dick Richards, continuously calling the shark a whale... 

Yupp that's right, Darryl F. Zanuck told the story of the frankly ridiculous story of how a lunch took Jaws away from Dick Richards: 

“The director kept referring to this thing as ‘the whale.’ After he’d done it three times, I said, ‘For God’s sake, this is a fucking shark! As we walked back to the office after this disastrous lunch, I said to Mr Brown, ‘We gotta renege. No way this guy who thinks a shark’s a whale is going to direct this picture.”

While it must have been an annoying way to get kicked off a project, thankfully they got Stephen on board to make one of the most classic horrors of all time.

Know any other movies that had to deal with director changes? Let us know in the comments below!