9. The Golden Compass
The Golden Compass probably should have been the next big fantasy franchise after The Lord of the Rings was done and Harry Potter began winding itself down, but New Line Cinema execs shot themselves in the feet with their dictatorial commands of director Chris Weitz, taking a relatively mature, adult story and cutting all the...dark material...leaving a shallow, inoffensive husk as the end product. Weitz's original cut ran three hours with a dark ending reflecting that of the book, but the studio balked, changing the ending, cutting 45 minutes of material and then having to re-shoot countless scenes to paper over the massive narrative holes. In full-on panic mode, scenes were re-ordered, and the studio, hoping to milk the success of Lord of the Rings, cast Christopher Lee and Ian McKellan in small roles. By this point the film was massively over-budget, and though it pulled in double its budget, is largely considered a critical failure and commercial disappointment. Had the studio let Weitz do it his way, they might have been onto a multi-billion dollar franchise.