10 Directors Who Were Kicked Off A Movie

2. Philip Kaufman - The Outlaw Josey Wales

Richard Donner Superman
Warner Bros.

As well as being one of the greatest Westerns ever made, The Outlaw Josey Wales also featured such notorious behind-the-scenes tensions between writer/director Philip Kaufman and star/producer Clint Eastwood that the Directors Guild of America was forced to introduce new legislation that became known as 'The Eastwood Rule'.

There were a number of disagreements on set between Eastwood and Kaufman, and things became so heated that the actor would instruct the crew to shoot scenes even if the director wasn't present. An uproar was caused when Kaufman was eventually fired, one that resulted in a $60,000 fine for the production.

The hastily-introduced 'Eastwood Rule' prevented either actors or producers from firing a director and then becoming the director themselves on other productions, which seemed fair really seeing as Eastwood essentially staged a coup on set.

Kaufman's revealed his thoughts on the matter in an interview and said it all really; 'Clint decided we had some creative differences. He was the producer. He was the biggest star in the world. One of us had to go'.

Contributor

I don't do social media, so like or follow me in person but please maintain a safe distance or the authorities will be notified. Don't snap me though, I'll probably break. I was once labelled a misogynist on this very site in a twenty paragraph-long rant for daring to speak ill of the Twilight franchise. I stand by what I said, it's crap.