10 Directors Who Should Never Be Trusted With Giant Budgets

8. Joel Schumacher

Although his entries in the Batman franchise have seen his reputation tainted in the eyes of many cinema-goers, let's not forget that Joel Schumacher is capable of making great movies with the right material. Despite being the man that put nipples on the Batsuit, his filmography also includes The Lost Boys, Falling Down, A Time To Kill, Tigerland and Phone Booth. After Tim Burton opted against returning to the franchise, Schumacher made his studio blockbuster debut shouldered with the $100m budget and huge expectations that came with Batman Forever. Taking the series in a radically different direction, Schumacher's movie does feature some stunning production design but is also a dumbed-down, over-commercialized version of the universe Burton had established. The infamous Batman & Robin upped both the budget and the camp factor, and is one of the worst blockbusters ever made; scenery-chewing performances, gratuitous butt-shots and an aesthetic closer to the 1960s TV series effectively killed the franchise, and the $140m production became the series' lowest-earner at the box office. Since the vitriolic reaction to Batman & Robin, Schumacher has tended to stay away from big-budget fare, and with good reason. The lamentable Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Bad Company was a box office flop, with its $66m worldwide gross failing to even cover the budget while his $70m adaptation of The Phantom Of The Opera earned over $150m, but was all style and no substance. It's been a decade since Joel Schumacher even made a good movie so there's little chance of him being handed a hefty budget anytime soon, especially with his past transgressions against blockbuster cinema.