10 Directors Who Will Ruin Upcoming Films

A director's name plastered across the credits of an upcoming movie can either be a seal of quality or a massive red flag.

Anything helmed by Christopher Nolan is going to be rich in narrative innovation and Steven Spielberg fodder is never short of whimsy. Filmmakers of this calibre can turn their hand to almost any genre and deliver a winner.

There are, however, times when the combination of director and subject matter is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Take the recent Dark Tower adaptation. Stephen King's magnum opus is a sprawling epic, a mash-up of genres with a generous side helping of weirdness. Many called it unfilmable, so it's not the kind of thing you tackle for your Hollywood debut.

The daunting task of bringing it to cinema was handed to Nikolaj Arcel, a Danish filmmaker whose past credits included nothing remotely similar to the epic literary saga. Although it's unfair to blame Dark Tower's failure on him alone, the project was in the wrong hands from the start, and the fans were right to fear the worst.

Unfortunately, it looks like the same could be happening for several other upcoming projects too...

Why the hell did Disney let Tim Burton within 100 feet of Dumbo? Look what's he's done to it already.

The Batman director's love of all things gothic is a great fit for certain properties, but not so much for cute cartoon elephants from your childhood.

A life-size model of the big-eared protagonist was revealed at the D23 Expo earlier this year, and it's enough to put you off the safari park for life. Dead behind the eyes, with a cold piercing glare, this absolutely is not the Dumbo we know and love.

And if this is what the main character looks like, it's a safe bet to assume the infamous Elephants on Parade sequence is going to send fans running from the theatre screaming, and later mourning their dead childhoods.