10 Film Directors Who Totally Tricked The Studio

Hollywood is a high-pressure, ultra-stressful business at even the best of times, and it's sadly all-too-common for talented filmmakers to find themselves facing off against a studio machine that doesn't much care for good art.

There are countless tales of potentially great movies being put through the studio mangle and turned into cinematic dreck, but every now and then, a canny director will use their cunning to slyly bend a studio to their will.

These 10 filmmakers, all now venerated legends of the industry in one way or another, exercised some brilliantly devious judgment in knowing how to surreptitiously wrap the studio around their finger.

While this manipulation was certainly risky and could've easily had dire consequences, in each case it was ultimately for the best, both for the sake of the movie long-term and also for the careers of the directors themselves.

After all, sometimes a studio just can't see past the piles of cash they're busy counting, and can't just let good artists make good art. Thankfully, these directors had the stones to give the studio the daring runaround...