10 Directors Who Quit Movies During Filming

2000's sci-fi horror film Supernova is alleged to have ended up costing $90 million in total, largely due to differences in vision between the studio and director Walter Hill.

Hill, a veteran filmmaker with esteemed credits such as The Warriors and 48 Hrs., was given just weeks to prepare the shoot due to MGM wanting to avoid the film getting entangled in the impending Screen Actors Guild strike, leaving him little time to iron out scripting issues.

Other problems throughout production were myriad: according to Hill the studio slashed the budget during shooting, VFX ended up costing significantly more than expected, and principal photography ended without all scenes being shot in order to cut costs.

The last straw for Hill was when MGM wanted to test-screen the film without completed visual effects or the remaining scenes filmed, which he felt would be disastrous.

With MGM refusing to pony up an extra $1.5 million to shoot more scenes before the test screening, Hill walked away from the production. The studio then hired Jack Sholder (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge) to replace him for reshoots and re-editing.

In an ironic turnaround, though, new MGM executives came in and weren't happy with Sholder's cut, so went back to Hill. Hill suggested $5 million worth of reshoots, which were refused, and Hill once again departed the project while the directing was credited instead to "Thomas Lee."

Supernova was then shelved for a while until MGM brought in Francis Ford Coppola to re-edit the film at the cost of $1 million.

With test screenings still going poorly, MGM sold the international rights to United Artists and it was finally released in January 2000, two years later than originally planned.

It went on to flop with critics and general audiences, while many who worked on the film maintain that much of Hill's work didn't actually appear in the final film.