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10 Movies Ruined By Studio Meddling

Screenrant

It’s not uncommon for a studio to mess around with a director’s movie. Some just take the abuse and don’t complain, while others (like Fantastic Four director Josh Trank) wage a losing battle they know will never likely go their way. Greed triumps over artistry. It’s a sad state of affairs, but a reality that most filmmakers know all too well.

Sure, some filmmakers are out of their depth in the studio system and need to be reined in, but on the other hand, some of the greatest filmmakers in cinema history have had to give in to the powerful Hollywood studio machine: Scorsese, Gilliam, Fincher, Welles, Leone, Scott etc. The list is endless and too frustrating to fully name.

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-Foxtrot3177d ago

F4 was not ruined by the studio, Josh Trank had every bit to do with it's disaster

He just blames the studio because he's trying to save what's left of his careerer

Porcelain_Chicken3177d ago

It's definitely both. Lately Trank seems to be having a 'Shia Le'Buff' style meltdown. Pointing fingers every which way. But Fox (studio, not you) has a pretty bad track record with these FF movies. They've now rebooted the franchise 3 times and royally wrecked it every single time! There's plenty of blame to go around with this one. If Trank was making a sh-t film, they could have stepped in if they had some kind of clue as to what the hell they were doing with the franchise to begin with.

-Foxtrot3177d ago

I'm not saying Fox wasn't involved in anyway but from what Josh described the movie as since the VERY START of production, the film described then is basically what we got as the final product

Even with all of Josh Tranks interviews, especially the Kevin Smith podcast one he praised the studio and Fox. Defending the changes he made to the series.

Plus he got wasted on set mostly apparently and even made Kate Mara cry.

Yi-Long3176d ago

An article about studios completely ruining movies, and no mention of it's long LONG history of completely BUTCHERING Asian movies for their western release, and in many cases, they even made sure it would subsequently be butchered in EVERY release, world-wide, due to western studios buying up the worldwide distribution rights...

That's disappointing.

Going as far back as Kurosawa's classics (probably even beyond that btw...), Hollywood has taken it upon itself to take these foreign movies, decide (for whatever reason), that these movies would be 'too foreign' for their 'western audience'(whatever that means, but apparently it usually means HUGE cuts and often replacing the original soundtrack with some rap-music, as well as (of course) dubbing the foreign voices into overexaggerated 'foreign accent' English dubs...

From Kurosawa's movies to later countless (literally) Hong Kong movies, as well as Thai, Japanese and Korean movies (although Japanese and Korean luckily often seem to be treated with a bit more respect so the butchering happens less often, also because many of those movies fall into the 'art-house' genre, instead of action/crime/martial-arts etc, pretty much every great Asian movie has been nearly destroyed by western studios, with not 1 example of a western cut actually IMPROVING upon the original cut.

The article mentions Once upon a Time in China having lost 90 minutes of footage, which is, of course, a DISGRACE. But John Woo's Red Cliff actually lost 140 minutes(!!!) That's more than two hours, because the western studios decides to just take Red Cliff pt 1 (146 minutes) and pt 2 (142 (minutes) and slice that into 1 movie, 148 minutes long.

A recent masterpiece, The Grandmaster, by Wong Kar Wai, had a great reception in it's original form, but again, the western release was HEAVILY cut, music was replaced, and consequently, reviews for that western cut were a whole lot less positive. I was lucky to have seen the movie uncut in Hong Kong when it came out, and I thought it was a stunning piece of ART, so obviously I'm extremely upset the west will probably never see that cut, unless they import or download an uncut version.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Asian movies which have been scarred, damaged, butchered, raped, etc etc like that. And that's just the movies that they released. They also tend to buy the rights for release, then sit on them for years, perhaps not releasing them ever.

And again, there isn't a single example of any of those studio-imposed cuts that actually resulted in a better end-product.

So if you're going to do an article about movies being destroyed by meddling studio execs, foreign movies, like Asian cinema, certainly deserve at least a mention.

Porcelain_Chicken3177d ago

Wow, I didn't know all of that. I knew he was a weird dude but... It was definitely a team effort though. Even if he falsely praised Fox, wishing for a miracle. The movie was incredibly dull. Very good actors with zero chemistry just phoning it in. Shouldn't ever be like that.

Anyways, if people like Uwe Boll can keep a steady career in Hollywood so can Trank.

wheatley3176d ago

Not every director with one film under the belt can handle blockbuster meddling from the higher ups. Safety Not Guaranteed director went straight into Jurassic World, and now Star Wars IX.

I do believe Trank wasn't trying to fuck up FF at every turn, and I would have loved to have seen the Fantasticar or some of the stuff in the trailers appear, but I'm sure he didn't cut that stuff himself.

Nodoze3176d ago (Edited 3176d ago )

Let's not forget the PC police tried to urban it up for inclusiveness which goes against the original source material. Ridiculous.

Not everything fits the 'narrative' they are trying to convey. I cannot wait for the Caitlin Jenner zombie flick...cause let's face it there are not enough transgender zombie movies. We need to be inclusive!!

Defectiv3_Detectiv33176d ago

As somebody who actually saw the film, from what I could tell Trank did a mostly admirable job. That being said, he never sought out to make a typical superhero film, and the movie goes to some interesting places that other superhero movies haven't dared to go. Had the movie not been taken from his hands and obviously butchered it might have even been something special, but we'll never know.

Fox never had any intention of doing the gee whiz version of FF4; they always wanted a more realistic take on the property so they could cross it over with their X-Men franchise. Problem is that they freaked when they realized Trank wasn't giving them the cookie cutter movie they had envisioned. There are a lot of scenes that challenge your typical comic book clichés and those are the best in the movie.

I would recommend watching the half in the bag review from Red Letter Media for those who want to get an honest take on the movie.

Baka-akaB3176d ago (Edited 3176d ago )

I'm not seeing it . Even the so called "good" first part was incredibly run of the mill . It just wasnt what you'd expect from a F4 movie , but hardly as innovative as its defenders make it .

The early origin pile on cheese and tropes like the kid Reed knocking out the power grid with his garage teleporter experiment .... being ridiculed and almost bullied by his teacher ... and it happening again when older at a science fair .

We also got the "Johnny i'm so cool and rebellious i'm redoing fast and furious / initial D" scene .

We got the usual petty and overzealous "evil" agent from the governement that wanna micro manage everything , or turn everything into a weapon ... with a weasel face ( and incidentally supposed to be Mole Man) . he was one laugh away from being a twin to the agent from the Transformers trilogy

And for a movie supposed to be more grounded , we barely had any science , mostly exposition scene when we'd be fed stuff you can see for yourself with a mangled science mumbo jumbo jargon .

And let's not forget those dreadful speeches from Storm Sr ...

Sure you can have that kind of negative outlook of mine for pretty much anything , but i truly believe that even the supposed Trank fuelled part were on the wrong path (like what's with that obsession with trying to forge a connection by making Doom having the same origin than the Four ? Being a self made man and a "wronged" acquaintance is enough and better) and even more camp than the awful first two movies . Because it tried to be so serious while being hilariously so lacking in everything they said they'd aim for .

+ Show (2) more repliesLast reply 3176d ago
dota2champion3177d ago (Edited 3177d ago )

I enjoyed Hancock, I guess the studio meddling in that helped the film

Crazay3176d ago

I liked Hancock too actually. It was a fun sort of twist on the genre and I'd like to see another.

Summons753176d ago

I agree, I enjoyed it when I saw it in theaters. I don't know why it's in an article about how studios ruined movies when the bit about Hancock clearly shows that they helped the movie...kinda out of place.

Yi-Long3176d ago

Hancock started out good, but as soon As Charlize Theron appeared it really went downhill, for a large part because you could tell from the first second that she had something to do with Hancocks's past, but also because the movie didn't have an interesting villain plus it never really knew how it wanted to handle the story and the violence/action, either serious, or straight up comedy, sometimes very lowbrow.

It had big potential, but it never managed to live up to that. Didn't help much that I didn't care for Bateman's character either.

FreddyFazbear3176d ago

What do you expect with a horrible cast?? Especially the controversial human torch casting. Problem with hollywood these days is that, to give an impression that a film is "Racially diverse" they put an african american in it. Every single time. Why can't they cast other races?? asians, latinos, middle easterns as "Main cast" not just a side character. back to F4 given the fact that jonhnny and sue storm are "True siblings" you really needed to change the ethnicity? but that's just one problem with F4, mostly with the story, direction and screenplay

masterfox3176d ago

I mean seriously who didn't see this coming for the Fantastic 4 ? all the freaking actors look so damn generic and boring, and why they put freaking kids on it ?, the same feeling I have right now about the main protagonist of the new Star Wars, look generic as F#$%ck!, still Star Wars will do exponentially better but is no denying the look of the new actors look bad, I'm only in cause is a Star Wars movie but not cause the morons kids they put as protagonist, the director it sure didn't put any effort on picking new blood for the series.

Baka-akaB3176d ago (Edited 3176d ago )

Well you're entitled to your opinion , but it's not as if anyone in the first trilogy , Except Harrison Ford , ooze charisma among the heroes .

Sure those went on to proves themselves and play great and classic characters , but you can't tell me that Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher didnt look as generic than the upcoming cast . And they werent much older than "kids" like John Boyega

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