10 Times Hollywood Regretted Giving Directors All The Freedom
It's probably not the best idea to just throw money at Coppola...
No filmmaker, no matter how much of a corporate, hackneyed slave they may seem to the mainstream system, enjoys having their creative freedom stripped from them. But it's inescapable. For every Brett Ratner release, there's another cut of the film out there the filmmaker slightly prefers.
However, despite the constant struggle between artistic integrity and commercial entertainment, there are times when studios just have too much confidence in their new find.
The most noteworthy example of this is filmmaker Michael Cimino, who impressed Hollywood enough with his sophomore effort The Deer Hunter to secure financing for his epic about a land squabble between ranchers and immigrants. When United Artists visited the set, they found he'd essentially built a whole town.
The fiasco of Heaven's Gate deserves its own article, possibly more, but those who saw it at Cannes claim the original cut received an ovation. The studio just cowered at the ambition on display and saw fit to cut the feature by half.
There are, however, just as many examples of the studio pulling rank with complete justification. Some filmmakers just go rogue or have difficulty controlling their stable of talent. Here are some instances where creativity and money came to an impasse, often with mixed results.
10. The Elephant Man
This is one instance where a studio's reluctance was dead-wrong. It only took one bizarre, black and white fever dream shot over the course of several years to get studios to notice David Lynch. This, of course, was Eraserhead. The film is much less of a ciphre than Lynch's later work, but it was impressive enough to get the attention of other filmmakers.
One such filmmaker was Mel Brooks, riding high off the success of Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. Brooksfilms, the director's production company, was trying to find a script for Lynch to direct, given that his current project wasn't gaining any traction. Upon seeing the title "The Elephant Man", Lynch found his next film.
Brooks, it seemed, was the only one to have complete confidence in Lynch, and it would turn out to be the right call. But one could understand why Paramount was nervous. Any studio working with talent lacking financial success would be. Lynch's ambition was likely off-putting as well, wanting to design everything personally, including the make-up. He didn't get the last part of the deal, but everything else was his.
When Paramount inevitably did ask for changes, specifically to the beginning and end, Brooks famously dropped the mic in his defence:
"We are involved in a business venture. We screened the film for you, to bring you up to date as to the status of that venture. Do not misconstrue this as our soliciting the input of raging primitives."