10 Movies That Changed Because Of A Director’s Bad Behaviour

This site recently featured a rundown of films which had to be altered during their creation due to the bad behaviour of their stars, and Hollywood is filled with salacious stories of actors derailing productions by behaving badly.

But what about the hotheads and outsized egos behind the camera? Don’t the humble (or not so humble, as the case may be) directors deserve a list of their own too?

These are the movies which had to be altered thanks to the dicey actions of their directors, whether they were harmless eccentrics, impossible auteurs, or something more sinister.

So strap in for a few decades' worth of clashing stars and helmers, directors who refused to stick to the script or budget, and outright shocking behaviour from filmmakers - as well as at least one case of a wronged artist being done dirty by producers behaving badly.

It’s only fair that this list address the unfairly mistreated directors too. In the interest of balance.

Released in 1976, The Outlaw Josey Whales is one of star and director Clint Eastwood’s more underrated offerings. The film is essentially a dark remix of High Plains Drifter, a Western tinged with supernatural elements which sees the iconic actor play a possibly ghostly gunslinger seeking vengeance and justice after his family are massacred.

However, it wasn’t original director Philip Kaufman, but rather his replacement Eastwood, who was to get in trouble for bad behaviour on this one.

Eastwood ended up taking over the direction of this film when he clashed with the original director. Philip Kaufman disagreed with the anti-government stance of the original novel, calling its author a “crude fascist”.

Eastwood soon used his star status to have Kaufman fired and take his place, a move so outrageous that the Director’s Guild of America soon sued the production.

This landmark case resulted in the creation of the so-called “Eastwood rule”, which stipulated that an actor could not have the director fired in order to then replace them on any future productions.