If filmmakers play their cards right with projects, one film can catapult them into superstardom and respect for the rest of their careers. Consequently, the inverse is also true if one misstep is monumental enough.
Let’s take a look at five movies that permanently altered a director’s career…for better or worse.
1. The Hurt Locker by Kathryn Bigelow
Director Kathryn Bigelow was always moderately well known in the action movie space. The head of corny classics like Point Break and Near Dark, she had already made more than a name for herself in that space by the time the film came out.
However, she made history in 2010, when she became the first woman to win the Best Director Academy Award for the Best Picture-winning film, even beating out her ex-husband, James Cameron, for the award, who was nominated for the first Avatar film.
Since then, she has become synonymous with ultra-serious militaristic, governmental epics like Zero Dark Thirty, Detroit, and most recently A House of Dynamite. While A House of Dynamite received relatively mixed reviews, particularly for its controversial conclusion, her work post Hurt Locker has solidified her as an aspirational figure in the genres she specializes in.
2. The Lone Ranger by Gore Verbinski
Gore Verbinski was seemingly unstoppable in the 2000s. He directed the American remake of Ringu, The Ring, starring Naomi Watts, which remains a Halloween staple today for many, as well as the wildly successful and beautifully constructed original Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy.
Attempting to ride the success of those movies, Verbinski helmed the 2013 adaptation of The Lone Ranger and gave the role of Tonto to Johnny Depp. The film received severe critical backlash, with many citing the bloated narrative and the odd casting of Depp as major detractors. The film also lost Disney over 160 million dollars at the box office, after only grossing 260 million dollars on a total investment pushing 400 million.
As a result, Verbinski was immediately tossed into “director jail”, and has never fully escaped. He released A Cure For Wellness in 2016, which received mixed to poor reviews, and was a box office failure (although, personally, I still quite like it). He also released Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die this year, but that film had a very similar trajectory to his previous one.
3. Get Out by Jordan Peele
‘Get Out’Credit: Universal Pictures
It’s pretty commonplace nowadays for people more commonly known for comedic projects to branch into horror…and a lot of this comes down to how seismically Jordan Peele did it in 2017.
It’s rare that a debut film from a first-time director cements their place in the lexicon so concretely, and so immediately, but Peele’s first outing as a director remains one of the most important, and most talked about films of the 21st century. I was fortunate enough to see the film on opening day in early 2017, and the pulsating energy inside that auditorium was absolutely electric. Horror ever since then seems to be defined in part by this film, and the impact Peele has had on it with just three features in nine years. Although it’s been four years since his late outing with Nope, Peele’s producing work in the genre and beyond has continued to make a lasting impact.
For a film that, at the time, seemed so small and potentially a swing and a miss, it instantly proved any naysayers wrong and shot Peele straight to the top of the filmmaking food chain.
4. Jupiter Ascending by The Wachowski Sisters
Lily and Lana Wachowski are the revolutionary duo behind the Matrix series, and while the original two sequels didn’t exactly blow everyone away, their work on films like Speed Racer, V for Vendetta, and Cloud Atlas still allowed them to maintain a deeply loyal fan base. Their action sci-fi epic Jupiter Ascending was obviously highly anticipated in these circles and beyond. Unfortunately, the film was both a critical and financial bomb, scoring largely negative reactions from even the most loyal fans of theirs.
It remains, after eleven years, the final film that the duo directed together, as Lana worked solo on The Matrix Resurrections in 2022. While there is a small group of loyal fans for that film, it remains the most negatively perceived installment in the franchise. The sisters have made moderate contributions to the streaming sector since then, and there are still many fans that await their next project, but it’s hard to deny that Jupiter Ascending seemed to slow their trajectory down quite a bit.
5. Jaws by Steven Spielberg
‘Jaws’Credit: Universal Studios
Probably the most famously successful movie of all time, Jaws completely changed the game not only in how blockbusters are made, but also distributed. And it did so against impossible odds.
I won’t get into all of the production hell that the film experienced because it’s so widely talked about at this point, it’s hard to find an original point to discuss. But the important part is that Spielberg’s career was in such jeopardy that he said he would cry himself to sleep multiple times while filming, because he was so certain he would never work again.
Upon release, Jaws revolutionized theatrical distribution by releasing wide in 465 theaters before expanding to over 700, and finally over 950. The film became the highest-grossing movie of all time, and held that record for two years until it was dethroned by the original Star Wars. And you all know what happened to Steven Spielberg’s career afterwards, so let’s just all remain thankful that it all worked out.
