10 Directors Who Quit Movies During Filming
5. Victor Fleming - Gone With The Wind
The production of Gone with the Wind is quite literally the stuff of legend, enough that three separate directors shot extensive portions of the film.
First up was George Cukor, who spent 18 days shooting the film before being fired by producer David O. Selznick, who disagreed with Cukor's shooting style, while Cukor was also said to have clashed with star Clark Gable.
In an attempt to right the ship, Victor Fleming, who was already shooting The Wizard of Oz at the time, was reassigned to pick up from Cukor on Gone with the Wind.
Yet Fleming himself ended up leaving the shoot abruptly after suffering with exhaustion, at which point Sam Wood (For Whom the Bell Tolls) was drafted in to shoot 24 days' worth of photography.
In Fleming's case, however, he did return to set after recuperating and shot for 93 days in total, accounting for roughly two-thirds of the entire shoot.
As a result, he received the sole directing credit for the film, which impressively bares few immediately noticeable scars of its hell-for-leather production and was of course one of Hollywood's greatest success stories.