10 Directors Who Were Kicked Off A Movie

1. Richard Donner - Superman II

Richard Donner Superman
Warner Bros.

Still arguably the most famous directorial reshuffling in Hollywood history, the stories behind Richard Donner's removal from Superman II are the stuff of legend.

Estimated to have shot over 75% of the movie, Donner was nonetheless fired and replaced by Richard Lester with the shoot running over a year behind schedule. In order to secure a director's credit, Lester was obligated to shoot over 50% of the movie, which led to numerous rewrites and even re-filming entire sequences that Donner had shot years previously that cause no shortage of visual and continuity errors in the finished movie.

While it may have taken 26 years for his version of the movie to see the light of day, Donner was clearly unaffected by his experience on the set of Superman as he went on to become one of the definitive directors of the 1980's thanks to The Goonies, Lethal Weapon and Scrooged.

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