10 Movies Where The Director Hated The Source Material

5. Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan

Though it's well-documented that J.J. Abrams wasn't much of a Star Trek fan before boarding 2009's hit reboot, he actually wasn't the series' first filmmaker to possess little interest in the property.

Nicholas Meyer, who served as writer-director on the much-loved Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, had never even seen an episode of Trek before signing on, and only agreed to direct after his attempts to get another sci-fi movie made were shot down.

The director actively disliked the preciousness with which both fans and the studio regarded Star Trek, and hilariously, he went on to say, "Far from being sacrosanct, I was of the opinion that Star Trek could stand some fixing."

Better still, Meyer felt that he brought a "healthy disrespect" to the set, and hoped that his outsider's eye could reduce some of the series', as he called it, "wooden" elements.

And he was absolutely right. Wrath of Khan is by far the franchise's consensus favourite among long-time fans, and it's in large part because Meyer served up such a human antithesis to its predecessor - the rather dry and oddly dull original movie, Star Trek: The Motion Picture.