One hit wonder movie directors

I am going to have to agree about Kevin Costner.

 

He's not a one-hit wonder, but Shamalayan (sp?) is starting to seriously drift into '1-trick pony- territory, IMO.

 

Yeah, him and Martin Scorcese. Hacks!

 

I don't think that Palahnuik is nearly the genius some of his fanboys think he is, but I do think he's much better than the literati crowd views him. Some of his later stuff is shit, but Fight Club, Choke, Survivor and Invisible Monsters are all good books. I actually like Fight Club very much. He's weird, and definitely over-the-top gross at times, but the way he's savaged by some critics is, I think, unfair.

I'm curious, Ace, what novel(s) of his did you read that spawned this hatred?

 

Invisible Monsters is his best book, followed closely by Fight Club. Choke is also very, very good...

 

Unbreakable was terribly underrated... Signs was such a monster hit that M. Knight shouldn't be on this list at all... He's only had one bomb and while I HATED The Village, it did make a fortune at the box office...

 

Tried to read Haunted. Couldn't finish. Not interested in seeing what else is out there.

Loved Unbreakable, by the way.

 

It was absolutely creative with a brilliant premise ... turning the author into a criminal was jaw-dropping and irreverant ... but by the end it just didn't deliver on its promise. To be honest, I can't even remember how it ends except to wonder whether the brother's screenplay about a murderer investigating himself could ever hit the big screen.

 

John Milius. Directed sj's favorite guilty pleasure Red Dawn. hasn't done much noteworthy since.

 

Those numbers are wildly inaccurate, though, because the difference between the budget and the gross is not "net profit." You also have to account for things like promotion and distribution, which I believe adds another 30% or so to the cost of the film. In reality, "Sixth Sense" and "Signs" were hits. "The Village" probably did a little better than breaking even. "Unbreakable" lost money, and "Lady in the Water" was a massive bomb.

Commercially he's a two hit wonder who will now be on a much shorter leash with the studio, especially since everyone involved reportedly hated everything about "Lady in the Water" and he wouldn't listen to anyone.

 

I'm taking "one hit wonder" to be the most objective term possible.
So I guess box office numbers.
I'd also like to nominate Gerard Damiano and Deep Throat.
The rules changed on him, in a way, in that there's no way you'd ever see a movie like that in regular theaters ever again, but at the end of his career he only had one box office success.

 

Ace,

Haunted is easily his shittiest novel. Critically panned, tepid sales, crummy writing ... even his die-hard followers thought it mostly sucked. CP is one of those writers who seems to get worse the more famous he becomes. I can understand not wanting to give him another chance after Haunted, but it would also be like judging Stephen King based on his worst book (my vote is for Insomnia). He has talent, but Haunted didn't show a lick of it. It's mostly him struggling to write a book for money, not having a plot, so he crammed a bunch of short stories together and upped the gross-out factor to hide their lack of cohesion. If you ever give another on a try, pick up Fight Club, Choke or Survivor.