10 Great Directors Who Made Terrible Debut Films

Alien 3 was a problem film from the get go with various directors being thrown at the project before it landed in the lap of a young David Fincher.

The 28-year-old had the difficult challenge of trying to salvage a film out of a script which had been passed around nine writers who had all attempted to make sense of the story to little joy. Whether anyone could have done a better job with the tools he was left with is debatable but regardless Fincher was seen as derailing the Alien franchise after two successful first entries.

While the 1992 film has since been reevaluated more favourably in recent years, Fincher's handling of the mythology and characters (notably killing off Bishop, Newt, and Hicks in the first act) was deemed by many fans and critics as insulting. Fincher deemed the final product so disastrous that he very publicly disowned it and managed to reinvent himself as the gritty director of Seven, Zodiac and Gone Girl.