10 People Who Ruined Movies For Everyone

10 People Who Ruined Cinema

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be discussing individuals whose creative or executive choices consistently damaged films, franchises, or the art of cinema in the eyes of critics, audiences, or the industry.

Uwe Boll

There’s a very good reason why Uwe Boll was allowed to keep making movies during the early millennium. These efforts, which were lambasted by critics and fans alike, were made largely to exploit German tax law, which allowed investors to write off the costs of failed cinematic endeavors. This isn’t to say that Boll didn’t try occasionally to make the best films he could during his heyday. That said, the director also liked to confront his aforementioned critics head-on, utilizing his experience as a boxer to exact a little real-life revenge against any detractors. So, was this a case of Uwe Boll possessing a too thin skin against criticism? Or simply a proud man making some money where it could be made? You decide.

Kathleen Kennedy

Fandom can be a notoriously difficult landscape to navigate, including one that comes from a creative sandbox as large as the “Star Wars” saga. Kathleen Kennedy earned her industry stripes alongside heavyweights Steven Spielberg and Frank Marshall as a co-founder of Amblin Entertainment. Her production duties would eventually lead her to the presidency of Lucasfilm, and it’s here where the modern era of complaints against her tenure arrives. “Star Wars” fans have, for years, bemoaned what they see as a heist of “their” property, in the service of content that’s been deemed by this sector as “woke.” These accusations have been backed up by separate reports that have remarked on Lucasfilm’s profit margin against its original four billion dollar investment.

Kevin Feige

Nothing stays gold forever. Even those at the top of cinema’s most beloved creations can occasionally see their fans turn on them after a time. Kevin Feige’s knowledge of the Marvel Universe shouldn’t really come into question, since he’s been partially responsible for steering the MCU ever since becoming president of Marvel Studios back in 2007. Those early films in Feige’s run, leading up to “Avengers: Endgame,” were watershed moments for comic book fandom. Yet, the more recent phases of Marvel movies, particularly their television products, have seen increasing backlash from fans regarding Feige’s direction. This lack of focus, leadership, and an overall sentiment of comic book burnout has led some to believe that the MCU is floundering in creative waters.

Jason Friedberg & Aaron Seltzer

Humor, like any other form of artistic expression, is subjective. Parody can be an even slippier slope to navigate, but there are probably few out there that would rise to defend the creative works of Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer in the modern day. The pair were responsible for a briefly popular but increasingly dumber series of parodic genre movies, all of which utilized the lowest hanging contextual fruit. Efforts such as “Disaster Movie,” “Epic Movie,” and “The Starving Games” were clearly leagues away from the clever parodic works of the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrahams, a la “Airplane!” Heck, these weren’t even on the level of “The Naked Gun.” They were just, well… bad.

Bob Chapek

It’s interesting to note the back-and-forth CEO juggling of Disney’s Bob Chapek and Bob Iger. The latter has been criticized over the years for his determination to bring unwanted live-action remakes to the silver screen. Meanwhile, the career of Chapek saw a backpedaling from the executive’s initial support of home, physical media on DVD and Blu-Ray, into a completely opposite direction. Disney’s shift to streaming under Chapek’s tenure has proven controversial to some fans of the brand. The CEO was actually replaced by his forebear, Iger, after only two years at the head of the House of Mouse.

Michael Cimino & The End of New Hollywood

Let’s get one thing perfectly clear: the early work of director Michael Cimino frankly defines cinema, rather than arriving at anything close to ruination. Instead, it’s Cimino’s relentless perfectionism as a filmmaker, combined with his willingness to spend studio money, that could be seen as an endpoint for the experimental “New Hollywood” era. Specifically, it was Cimino’s 1980 film “Heaven’s Gate,” seen by many today as a masterpiece, that essentially bankrupted United Artists. This sounded the death knell for studios handing over too much control to their directors, holding back the reins as New Hollywood’s prominence shrank in the face of major blockbuster appeal.

Joseph Breen

It was the (true) perception of old school Hollywood’s internal lasciviousness, an era that was well-represented in Damien Chazelle’s 2022 film “Babylon,” that gave rise to the adoption of the Hays Code in 1934. This self-governing set of rules was overseen and implemented by Joseph Breen, just as the era of “talkies” was taking hold as an industry standard. Breen’s career as a film censor actually had an unintended effect, however, since it arguably led to the rise of film noir. Movies that were forced by the Hays Code to utilize innuendo and atmosphere to drive home plot points that would’ve been affected by Hays censorship. So while Breen’s efforts may have ruined explicit content in film, they contributed to a vibrant, opposing creative force.

William R. Wilkerson

The phrase “evil prevails when good men stay silent” may have been misappropriated to Irish statesman Edmund Burke, but the overall sentiment certainly rings true when discussing the fear-mongering supporters of McCarthyism. It was William R. Wilkerson’s work with his “Hollywood Reporter” that outed industry folks who allegedly sympathized with Communism. Lists such as Wilkerson’s proved to be influential for Hollywood’s blacklisting of screenwriters and other professionals who were seen as agents of the left. This blacklist hurt the careers of many during its years of influence, although its influence tended to wane by the end of the 1950s.

David Zaslav

Don’t think for a second that it’s only underground names such as Uwe Boll who have benefited from writing off art in favor of tax benefits. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav has received more than his fair share of criticism for doing exactly that to high-profile films such as “Batgirl” or “Coyote vs. Acme.” Such shelving has created “lost media,” similar to how the W.B. has eliminated the availability of classic cartoons on streaming services such as HBO Max. At the same time, lost media isn’t exactly “lost” if fans own them, right? This has essentially created a counter-movement, where more and more young people are treasuring and collecting physical media, in direct defiance of corporate control and dictatorship.

Harvey Weinstein

The casting couch tropes and sexual assault convictions against disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein are sadly nothing new when it comes to the history of Hollywood. At the same time, however, the rise of #MeToo did at least offer greater visibility to the situations so many performers are presented with as they attempt to navigate their careers. And while it’s true that Weinstein’s work with Miramax and Dimension Films did help a lot of independent filmmakers achieve success and exposure with their creative endeavors, none of that goodwill should’ve been achieved on the back of personal exploitation.

What, to you, was the best point in cinema history? Sound off in the comments!