10 Directors Who Absolutely Hated Their Own Movies

Frank Herbert’s Dune (1965) was one of the most celebrated space fantasy books of the era, and plans to adapt for the screen began as early as 1971, with an unsuccessful attempt made by Ridley Scott (Alien) among others.

A decade later, David Lynch was riding high following the success of his second full-length movie The Elephant Man (1980). Lynch was approached to take on the project by producer Dino De Laurentiis and was in agreement so long as he would also be given the opportunity to write the screenplay.

With a genre in vogue following the success of Star Wars, a celebrated novel as source material, and a hot young director at the helm, early signs were that the Dune movie had all the hallmarks of being a hit. But when Lynch’s plan to split the material across two films was dismissed, it took the filmmaker a total of six further drafts to condense the material into just one movie.

Even then, as the budget inflated to over $40m with a significant sized crew required to pull off the vast operation, Lynch had filmed over four hours of film on his rough cut and was asked to condense this down to just two. The director felt that he was completely selling out by having his hand forced in adhering to the request, and thus subsequently disowned the theatrical version which was eventually released in 1984 and bombed at the box office.