1Chris Columbus
Chris Columbus was originally set to direct National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation but dropped out after difficult meetings with star Chevy Chase. Instead, Columbus made Home Alone; the highest-grossing Christmas film of all time.
2Robert Zemeckis
Director Robert Zemeckis, who has approval over all films in the Back to the Future franchise, says that he will block all attempts to remake or reboot the original film.
3Taika Waititi
According to Taika Waititi, 80% of the dialogue in Thor: Ragnarok was improvised, in order to create a “very loose and collaborate mood” among the cast in an attempt to replicate the tone and sensibility from his previous films.
4James Cameron
James Cameron was homeless when writing The Terminator, and sold the rights for $1, on the condition he could direct it.
5Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock once bet a prop man a week’s salary to spend the night chained up in a movie studio, giving him a beaker of brandy to get him through the night. It was laced with strong laxatives. The following morning, the film crew found the poor man crying in a puddle of his own feces.
6Harmony Korine
Harmony Korine, the director of ‘Spring Breakers’ was banned from ‘The Late Show’ when David Letterman found him rifling through Meryl Streep’s purse backstage.
7Kurt Russel
Kurt Russel directed Tombstone but didn’t want to be listed as the director. Of the two listed directors, one was fired very early in the production and the second was a “ghost director.”
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8Peter Jackson
The Lord of the Rings director, Peter Jackson, orchestrated 20,000 cricket fans during a game’s inning breaks in order to produce the sound of the Uruk-hai army in The Two Towers.
9John Ford
Director John Ford was sent to the island of Midway to film a documentary on life at a small, isolated military base. He ended up getting caught in the Battle for Midway, but he filmed the entire thing and was also injured during the fight.
10James Gunn
Director of Guardians of the Galaxy James Gunn wrote a script with the actual dialogue for Vin Diesel so that he would know what inflections to give when he said his lines as “I am Groot.”