2. Paul W.S. Anderson
Never is an under-the-thumb director more infuriating than when he isn't even a particularly good director to begin with, and especially when he's a terrible one. While I might have laughed my way through Paul W.S. Anderson's moderately entertaining video game adaptation of
Mortal Kombat, the fact that he is currently at the helm of a dreadful franchise that has somehow grossed almost $700m worldwide is likely a sign of the coming apocalypse. Yes, Anderson has directed five instalments in the sacrilegious
Resident Evil film series, and it was after meeting lead actress, Milla Jovovich, on the set of the first film that the two became an item, had a baby, and eventually married. Thus it follows that, like Len Wiseman and Kate Beckinsale's dynamic in Underworld, the two are a team of sorts, albeit even less scrupulous in their choices, apparently keen to milk as much out of the maddeningly popular franchise - which bears little resemblance to its video game source material - as possible. In many ways, their relationship appears to have built them this franchise, because recent interviews with Jovovich about the future of the series suggest that she does have a certain creative input and is acutely involved with the direction of her husband's cash cow. Unsurprisingly, a sixth film is in the works before the fifth has even been released. Anderson also cast Jovovich in his spastically overstylised
The Three Musketeers, and while Jovovich performs well enough in these physically demanding roles, the fact that she has gone from a relatively obscure actress best known as Leeloo in
The Fifth Element to a femme fatale action star on the basis of her husband's stagnant franchise makes Anderson one of cinema's most unfussed, loved-up directors.