12 Directors Who Blamed Studios For Failed Movies

You know that a Director is truly unhappy with his final product when he asks for the film to be removed from his list of credits. That was the case for Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons, a 1942 film that became embroiled in backstage politics. The story followed the Amberson family, the wealthiest in all of Indiana, with Welles' intending on bringing a dark take on the 1918 hit novel.

With the production running overtime and over budget, and with mixed reviews from test audiences, the producers at RKO Radio Pictures renegotiated Welles' contract, removing his editing and exclusive creative control. When Welles took on a semi diplomatic mission in Brazil, RKO utilised his absence and began dramatically altering the film away from the Director's darker version. Nearly an hour of footage was removed, with a 'happier' ending inserted to end the film. Welles was outraged by the final product, explaining that the removal of the dark ending destroyed the whole film. "Without that, there wasn't any plot. It's all about some rich people fighting in their house."

While the film failed to make a profit and was deemed as a failure in the eyes of Welles, it was actually critically acclaimed, and even landed multiple Academy Award nominations. Due to much of Welles original footage being destroyed, he was never able to make his final version of the film, which he claimed would have been better than Citizen Kane.