Alan Smithee

*I* directed Hellraiser: Bloodline- it's a masterpiece!

shermofthedark

"A majority of actors."







(The [very biased, anti-Hooper] Zelda)

Josh-da-man

I have noticed that a lot of 80s Spielberg movies have a definite Spielbergian feel: Poltergeist, Gremlins, Goonies, Back to the Future, and I'd even include Twister in there, too. Not saying he directed all of these, but his touch was there.

You can sort of see, after Raiders and ET, where he started transitioning to more serious movies like The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, and Always, then culminated with Schindler's List, and then only "produced" the genre stuff -- aside from Indiana Jones -- until Jurassic Park.

dex14

I just read an interview the other day with Joey Pants where he mentions The Goonies:

“When you were in Goonies did you get to interact with Spielberg much?

He directed half of it. It was just a matter of economy. They had a firm date and they needed to get the movie done, so you know, he had the B unit and Richard Donner had the A unit. I learned so much about collaboration from those guys. “

Why So Blu?

I've read that Stallone directed Cobra and First Blood Part II, as well. Those are also George Cosmatos films.

JeremyM

With this and Tombstone, are we sure Cosmatos is even a real person at this point and not a nom de plume?

emachine12

Payback - the theatrical cut had a new third act directed by Mel Gibson after Brian Helgeland was fired. Gibson then gave the entire theatrical version the blue noire tint.

Why So Blu?

I'm glad they went back and gave Helgeland his cut back in the "Straight Up Edition." That's my preffered version. I believe the UK BD has both versions on the same disc.

Why So Blu?

Ha, certainly seems like it.

Mabuse

That doesn’t jibe with anything any of the other actors have said over the years.

dex14

You mean like how Sean Astin wrote in his book that some people thought he was a co-director?

Mabuse

Who, Sean Astin or Steven Spielberg? As I said in this thread several years ago. All available evidence indicates that Spielberg directed some reshoots and little of what he shot was used.

Josh-da-man

It's probably safe to assume that Steven Spielberg is a very hand-on producer.

Daytripper

Agree. That was a Spielberg directed film if there ever was one.

shermofthedark

Yet it wasn't.

Spielberg did 2nd Unit and worked likely with the ILM unit at great lengths, but you can find numerous stories of Hooper working by himself on the set yet there is not one story of Spielberg ever directing anything without Hooper being present, the filmmaker through which every decision had to go through (even if suggested by the great and powerful Spielberg, who has explicitly stated, "The problem with producing "Poltergeist" is wanting to do things your way but instead having to go through procedure."). No matter how prevalent Spielberg made himself (and Hooper allowed him to be) on the set, Hooper was the primary decision-maker and could agree to or veto anything Spielberg may have wanted. Robbie would have had at least several one-liners if Hooper simply stuck to Spielberg's script. More info:


And a photo:



Meanwhile, Hooper was completely frozen out of the marketing of the film and the rumors were allowed to spread until Hooper had to sue MGM.

d2cheer

Yeah I have it. Picture quality not the best...

inri222

His son Panos Cosmatos who made Beyond the Black Rainbow and Mandy is a hell of a director.

inri222

He's not the only one. There are certain films in which the producer has so much influence that it feels as if they were the director.
V for Vendetta feels like a Wachowski film even though they wrote and produced.
Journey Into Fear feels like an Orson Welles film even though he was the co-writer and producer.

I'm sure there are more examples.

Quatermass

1951 "The Thing from Another World" was by many accounts directed by Howard Hawks. It's on the wikipedia page

hal9000

During production of Back to the Future when they were filming the exterior shots of Hill Valley High School (Whittier HS) in early 1985 Steven Spielberg was on set every day (5 day shoot). They filmed mostly at night but he'd be there during set-ups in the day time.

Side note, Spielberg even went shopping at an old vintage army surplus store nearby that was owned by the uncle of a friend of mine. The store was located just two blocks from Whittier High. Supposedly Spielberg went on a shopping spree because I guess he loved old army stuff, plus he was about to go into production on The Empire of the Sun. This store was packed with actual WWII vintage uniforms and gear, the store itself was a little known "hidden gem." Spielberg returned to Whittier for the production of BTTF II in March of 1989 but only for a couple of days during the week long shoot and again he visited the army surplus store. The guy that owned the army surplus store was kind of eccentric and had a wealth of WWII/Korean/Vietnam knowledge. Leading up to the production of Shindler's List the store shipped some items to Speilberg/Amblin. Spielberg himself would make one last visit to the surplus store right before going into production on Saving Private Rayn, the store would end up closing shortly after that movie was made.

Just thought it was cool that even as busy as a guy like Spielberg could be, he still has interests outside of film and actually doesn't have someone shopping for him all the time (although I bet that happens) but he actually gets his hands dirty like the rest of us.

Why So Blu?

Spielberg is known to go shopping at various places out here in L.A.. I have a friend who sets up shop at the Rose Bowl "flea market" and Spielberg always stops by. I always thought it was funny that they call it a flea market since the majority of shoppers are wealthy and live near the Rose Bowl.

DJariya

There was a rumor years ago that Richard Donner ghost directed massive reshoots for the 1st Wolverine movie. But, Donner denied it.

Also, I don't know if you can really call this "ghost directing" but Bruce Lee actually directed all the fight sequences and developed the original script of Game of Death. But, after he died, there wasn't enough footage to actually make a movie. So Golden Harvest hired Robert Clouse to complete the movie. But, as we all know, it was complete shit.

Jay G.

For Rogue One: A Star Wars story, the rumor is that Tony Gilroy, hired for re-writes during post-production, ended up directing the reshoots.

dhmac

The movie Game of Death only had about 5 minutes of Bruce Lee's footage in it, but he actually shot a lot more footage. Over 30 minutes of footage of the big fights up a 5 level pagoda that were intended to end the film were shot and were eventually released within the documentary Bruce Lee: A Warrior's Journey, a documentary which was later included as an extra on a DVD release of Enter The Dragon and is even available now (Jan 2020) for streaming at Amazon Prime.
( ).

And unlike the film version of Game of Death and its poorly done body doubles and lousy effects (like the floating head scene), this once lost but then found fight footage does not suck.

Mabuse

Yeah, I remember seeing that reassembled footage on AMC back when they used to be an actually good channel full of classic old movies.