10 Films Directors Regret Making

7. Che - Steven Soderbergh

Shutter Island Teddy Daniels
Optimum Releasing

Though few will hold up Steven Soderbergh's two-part Che project as one of the director's better movies, it's certainly a laudably ambitious, sober-minded effort topped by a terrific performance from Benicio del Toro as the titular revolutionary.

Both films proved bitterly divisive with critics, and Soderbergh has since spoken extensively about how personally draining the back-to-back production was, enough that he wishes he never actually made the movies at all. In a 2009 interview with The Guardian, he confessed:

"Everybody got scarred by [Che] a little bit... I don't know how to describe it. It took a long time to shake off. It was just such an intense four or five months that it really… You know, for a year after we finished shooting I would still wake up in the morning thinking, 'Thank God I'm not shooting that film'... Literally I'd wake up and think, 'At least I'm not doing that today.'"

The interviewer also point blank asked Soderbergh if he wished he hadn't made the film and he replied with a clear, emphatic "Yeah."

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.