8 Films Disowned By Their Directors Before They Were Released

Strap yourselves in folks, because we're about to go full meta. An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn, released in 1998, stars Eric Idle of Monty Python fame as the unfortunately named Alan Smithee; a director who nobody will take seriously because of his infamous name.

The film itself was actually directed by Arthur Hiller, director of See No Evil, Hear No Evil. Coming off the back of a successful and lauded career that started in the late 50's, Hiller found himself releasing several critical and commercial flops in the 1990's. The last of these, An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn, was panned across the board by critics and currently holds an 8% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

However, this wasn't why Hiller discredited himself as the film's director. Hiller publicly stated that he distanced himself from the film after seeing Joe Eszterhas's cut of the film, taking issue with the final product.

Eszterhas rebuked this in his biography, stating that Hiller actually sat with him in the editing room whilst he cut the film and offered advice. So, it's more than likely that it was simply just a stupid marketing ploy, or maybe an extra-meta joke Hiller played on his audience.