10 Films Directors Wanted You To Hate

10. Mars Attacks!

When director Tim Burton’s alien invasion film Mars Attacks! opened in 1996, many people went into it expecting it to be a parody of the blockbuster Independence Day, which had opened just a few months before.

The comedy, which starred an ensemble of big names such as Annette Bening, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Pierce Brosnan, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Jack Nicholson (who played two characters), was an exercise in camp and cynicism, sprinkled with moments of graphic (albeit cartoonish) violence. Many people left the theater baffled at what they had just seen, mostly because they weren’t in on the joke.

From its inception, Burton’s Mars Attacks! was supposed to be a throwback to the cheesy alien invasion movies of the 1950s. Not only that, but the entire film was an homage to the works of Ed Wood, who was considered to be the worst filmmaker of all time. Mars Attacks! was Burton’s follow up to the 1994 biopic he had made about Wood which was a critical darling and won many awards.

While making of Ed Wood, Burton grew to empathize with the man so much that he decided for his next project he would bring to life what he felt the director would have made had he ever gotten a shot to make a major Hollywood film. In the end, he pulled it off because not many people appreciated it. The confusion and general dislike for the film allowed Tim Burton to live in Ed Wood’s shoes for a moment.