Current Events > Step 1: Director does a great job with a movie

(+) Yeah! (+)

Step 2: Studio gives them more control for the next movie in the series
Step 3: Next movie is terrible

Why does this happen?

the Kojima Effect

Terry Gilliam is immune somehow

g0ldie posted...

the Kojima Effect

I disagree with Kojima being an example. The game is still good, even if the story becomes batshit.

How many movie series have worse sequels that can be attributed primarily to directorial incompetence rather than budget issues, studio meddling & demands, bad scripts, and deadlines?

The industry is desperate for that next Kurosawa, still, and tosses everything at the wall to see what sticks.

AmericaTheBrave posted...

I disagree with Kojima being an example. The game is still good, even if the story becomes batshit.

I was mostly joking, tbh.

which director(s), though?

I can only think of FFC & The Godfather 3 (even though I wouldn't necessarily call it terrible; just disappointing).

edit: nevermind - George Lucas

Maybe because on the first movie they take their time with really no expectations. Then with the 2nd movie the studios like money money money now now now! And they rush it out and it sucks.

because most great creative works are the result of multiple people collaborating and bouncing ideas off of each other. when one person is given complete creative control and refuses to accept input from others, the quality usually suffers.

Star Wars is a perfect example of this. Lucas brought his unrefined ideas to the table, got lots and lots of constructive feedback and the result was a masterpiece. then he's given complete creative control over the prequels and look what happened.

I also see this happen a lot in music. Members of The Beatles and Pink Floyd were, for the most part, unable to make anything truly incredible on their own.

Michael Cimino pretty much invented this.

bump

Limitations, oversight, and people reigning you in can be great for the creative process.

Star Wars 4-6 were great for those reasons. Lucas was the driving creative force, but technical limitations and powerful countervoices toned down his dumb ideas and brought in good ideas of their own.

Star Wars 1-3 were entirely Lucas's babies, with CGI being an end all be all to all visual needs and nobody else really having anything more than a token say in the production. And they sucked as a result.

It's very hard for one person to be the mastermind of everything in one movie, much less multiple.

Most directors don't get much more control for their second movie tbh. There's a plethora of issues though that can lead to something like in the OP. But imo, I think the biggest one is when you have already proven yourself and are being handed budgets you used to fight for, some of that drive gets lost in the transition.

You're no longer skipping meals to rent gear. You won an academy award on a microbudget imagine the things you could do with multimillion dollar funding. Things get harder and simpler simultaneously when more money is involved.