10 Directors With No Recent Successes Despite Their Talent – Top

Some directors can seemingly churn out good movies without even thinking. There are others who only pop up every few years, but always with an absolute corker. Then there are those who show talent, but for one reason or another, just can’t seem to put a good movie together for years.

So today, we’ll take a look at 12 talented directors who haven’t released a good movie in years. There’s no particular order but if you think we’ve missed someone off this list then why not let us know in the comments.

 

1. Alex Proyas

Alex Proyas found praise with his 1988 low budget sci-fi movie Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds, but really hit the ground running in the 90s. His next movie was The Crow, a flawed yet good comic book adaptation at a time when people were struggling to figure out how to make a good one. That was then followed up with the well received (and visually stunning) sci-fi cult classic, Dark City.

However, the 2000s brought a lull in Proyas’ career, with Garage Days, I, Robot and Knowing All either getting mixed reviews or flat out bad ones. His most recent movie is the notoriously naff Gods of Egypt in 2016, which holds a dismal 15% on Rotten Tomatoes and was also nominated for a couple or Razzies.

Proyas has proved that he has the skills and vision to make high quality, interesting sci-fi. Hopefully he’ll get a chance to get his mojo back and steer away from trying to make these big budget multiplex monstrosities.

 

2. Cameron Crowe

Cameron Crowe is the first of many directors on this list who have spent their careers trying to measure up to their early efforts. Crowe’s first movie was the Oscar nominated Jerry Maguire, it was also a critical and commercial hit and has led to multiple spoofs of people shouting “show me the money” ever since. Many people seem to forget his follow up Almost Famous, which was also a critical hit. However this time, Almost Famous didn’t resonate which audiences as much and struggled to make its budget back.

Crowe’s first misstep was Vanilla Sky, an English language remake of Alejandro Amenábar’s 1997 movie Open Your Eyes. Crowe teamed up again with Jerry Maguire star Tom Cruise and the movie did well, making over $200 million at the box office worldwide. While I personally liked the movie, it received mixed reviews generally. Elizabethtown would be his next picture starring Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst. This ‘romantic tragi-comedy’ would be Crowe’s first movie to receive negative reviews, but certainly not his last.

Crowe’s next movie wouldn’t be until We Bought A Zoo. This Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson picture received mixed reviews. Most recently, Cameron Crowe directed Aloha featuring an all star cast led by Bradley Cooper and Emma Stone. The movie was slaughtered by critics, and currently holds a 20% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

 

3. Dario Argento

As a horror fan, it seems almost heresy to say a bad thing about Dario Argento. While many of Argento’s movies received critical scorn following their release, they have since been reassessed and the likes of Suspiria and Tenebrae are seen as classics of the horror genre, so much so that Suspiria was remade in 2018.

However, many feel that Argento’s quality has declined over the years. Towards the turn of the century, Argento released The Phantom of the Opera, as well as Sleepless and The Card Player, all to either mixed or negative reception. Reviewers felt that his third entry into The Three Mothers trilogy, Mother of Tears, was entertaining, but still only holds a 48% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Since then, he’s released Giallo and Dracula 3D, both to negative reviews. Argento was attached to direct an Indiegogo backed movie called The Sandman, also due to star Iggy Pop. The Indiegogo page hasn’t been updated since 2017, so I’d consider this one dead in the water. He still has various projects in the works, so who knows if this 79 year old director will take up the chair one more time.

 

4. Neil Marshall

This one hurts the most, because I love horror, and after the release of Dog Soldiers and The Descent, Marshall looked to be the next big thing. The Descent is a masterpiece in slow building dread while being claustrophobic and dark — it is one of my favourite horror movies, and is often overlooked as one of the best in its genre.

Naturally, I was curious to see what Marshall would turn his hand to next. That would be Doomsday, a larger production for Marshall, featuring a disease ravaged Britain in more of a sci-fi action movie. The film received mixed reviews at best. His next movie, Centurion, starring Michael Fassbender, did better, but still received mixed reviews.

Marshall spent the next few years directing episodes of big budget TV shows including, Game of Thrones, Black Sails, Constantine and Hannibal. He returned to movies for Hellboy, an ill-judged R-rated reboot of the comic book franchise. It bombed at the box office and was panned by critics. Marshall is a very talented director, but like others on this list, seems to struggle with larger productions, I’d love to see him tackle a low budget horror again.

 

5. Jared Hess

Jared Hess is an interesting case. He is part of a husband-wife filmmaking duo (with Jerusha Hess) and is most well known for being the director of Napoleon Dynamite, a movie which received a lot of praise and gained a cult following. Nacho Libre would come next, and despite Libre being a children’s movie, it wasn’t received favourably by critics.

The Hess’ next major picture would be Gentlemen Broncos. Despite much excitement over the movie pre-release, Broncos would do worse than Nacho Libre, gaining a score of only 18% on Rotten Tomatoes. He wouldn’t release a movie for another six years, until Don Verdean and Masterminds, with both receiving negative reviews.

In the meantime, Jerusha Hess would release Austenland, which was also received badly. Worst of all, all of these bad reviews have led people to look back and reassess Napoleon Dynamite as not being as good as first thought. Personally, I still think Dynamite is a great picture, thanks to its pitch perfect tone and casting. I’d love to see the Hess’ regain their form. Hess is reportedly helming the Shanghai Noon sequel, Shanghai Dawn, although there is little information on the sequel to date.

 

6. Richard Kelly

For those of a very particular generation, Donnie Darko holds a special place in their heart. Darko was a masterpiece in non-narrative fiction, forcing discussion on what the contents of the movie truly meant, teamed with some great cinematography. Critics praised the movie, although it struggled to make its budget back at the box office.

Kelly’s post-Darko career has felt like a man desperately trying to recapture the magic of his earlier work. He followed Donnie Darko up with a Dwayne Johnson and Seann William Scott led Southland Tales, which polarized critics, however many opted to give the movie a negative review. Next came Cameron Diaz thriller, The Box, which received mixed reviews.

To make matters worse, in 2004 Kelly released his own director’s cut of Donnie Darko, which many agree actually made the movie worse than the theatrical version. Since 2009, Kelly hasn’t directed a single movie, although is reportedly working on a biopic about Rod Serling, creator of the Twilight Zone.

 

7. Kevin Smith

There’s not much I can write about Smith that hasn’t already been said. By my generation, he was held up as this funny guy whose comedies managed to meet all those stoner beats of other movies without having to lower itself to the standard of other comedies of the late 90s/early 00s, movies starring the likes of Adam Sandler/Tom Green/Rob Schneider — delete as applicable.

Smith made his name off the back of Clerks, Chasing Amy and Dogma. But it would become apparent that outside of the church of Smith followers, his movies weren’t being overly well received. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jersey Girl both received mixed reviews at best. Later efforts Clerks 2 and Zack and Miri Make A Porno fared better, but not well.

His 2010 buddy cop movie Cop Out, starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, was critically panned, and Smith’s career hasn’t improved since. The last three movies he’s completed have all been in the horror genre. Red State, Tusk and Yoga Hosers have all had mixed to negative reviews, although the latter two movies did have an interesting concept.

Smith is going back to his roots this year with Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, and has always said that he intends to create Clerks 3, although this seems to have stalled due to the disinterest from one of the original stars. Smith is also working on an anthology movie called KillRoy Was Here.

 

8. Joel Schumacher

Joel Schumacher is an odd director. On the surface, he appears to be a brutally untalented man, with much of his back catalogue being absolute tosh. But there are diamonds there if you’re willing to wade through the sludge. The Lost Boys, Falling Down and The Client all proved that this guy can put out a good movie when he wants to.

Then came Batman & Robin. He followed that up with two more negatively received films in 88mm and Flawless. Not to be held down, Schumacher fired back with the well received Tigerland and Phone Booth.

However, Schumacher hasn’t put out anything that has had solid reviews since 2002. Veronica Guerin, The Phantom of the Opera, The Number 23, Blood Creek, Twelve and Trespass were all poorly received, and Joel Schumacher has not directed a movie since.

 

9. Paul WS Anderson

I made a (slightly) shocking discovery while compiling this list. It was that Paul WS Anderson does not have a single movie in his back catalogue that critics universally like. In fact, checking his work on Rotten Tomatoes reveals that none of his films have an approval rating of more than 50%. He’s like the British Uwe Boll, and he’s cruised along for over two decades on the cult following of two movies, Mortal Kombat and Event Horizon.

Mortal Kombat is a total cheesefest, but it at least looks the part and is generally faithful to the source material.While Event Horizon isn’t perfect, it shows that Anderson has a certain eye for the look of a film and there’s plenty to please the eye. Many believe the negative reviews thrown at this movie at release to be wrong, and considering there’s an upcoming TV series sequel, maybe they were right?

However, we can’t ignore the tosh that Anderson has put out since. Alien vs Predator, Death Race, The Three Musketeers, Pompeii and the Resident Evil series have all been met with mixed reviews at best. Paul WS Anderson is currently working on a film adaptation of Monster Hunter, scheduled to release in 2020, and while I cannot argue with his passion for the franchise, I am more than a little skeptical that he can pull off a decent flick.

 

10. Neil Blomkamp

Like most of us, I adored District 9. A sci-fi action/adventure that was filmed with Blomkamp’s signature docu-style, it featured fantastic direction, with great performances and special effects. The movie was also filled with satire aimed toward life in Blomkamp’s native South Africa.

But this has been the height of his work to date. He next released Elysium starring Matt Damon, and it’s a decent movie that had mixed to positive reviews for Blomkamp, but it did feel like a comedown after District 9. Sadly, his follow up, Chappie, while commercially successful, would struggle critically, managing only 32% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Since then, Blomkamp has attempted to get a number of projects off the ground to no success. Most interestingly, he worked on a potential Alien sequel, which would retcon the third and fourth movies in the series, and possibly focus on the story of Ripley and Hicks from Aliens. The project was halted, dependent on the response to Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant, and because of the general failure of that movie, I doubt we’ll see Blomkamp’s Alien 3.

He was recently working on a Robocop sequel that ignores the second, third and reboot movies in the series, but in August he announced that he would not be directing the movie.

 

Honorable Mentions

People I’ve told about this article have asked me what I planned to write about Uwe Boll. In short, I am not. Couple of reasons why: this article is called ‘10 Talented Directors Who Haven’t Made a Good Movie in Years’. Boll isn’t talented. Secondly, Boll retired from directing back in 2016, and while many people claim that Boll has the longest streak of bad movies, it’s important to remember that his 2009 movies Rampage and Darfur actually received positive reviews, and the latter won Best International Film at New York International Independent Film and Video Festival.

It feels as though Francis Ford Coppola is built for a list like this, his classics The Godfather and Apocalypse Now both being released in the 70s. But Tetro did receive positive reviews. Coppola has been running experimental live film project Distant Vision since 2015 and plans to return to directing with his passion project Megalopolis.

Tim Burton is one of those directors that people expect to find on lists like this, and while I agree he’s past his best, he can still put out a good movie. His movie Big Eyes was actually nominated for a number of awards, including a Golden Globe win for Amy Adams.

And finally, I couldn’t forget good ol’ M. Night Shyamalan. The reasons that he didn’t make the main list are fairly obvious, with The Visit and Split both getting praise. Glass stumbled recently, so we’ll have to wait and see if Shyamalan can regain his best.

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