Witnessing talented directors lose their career momentum can be difficult for audiences, especially when such minds have crafted great cinema staples. Filmmakers in Hollywood can oftentimes be in constant rotation, with many introducing moviegoers to engrossing characters and flicks for a period of time before exiting the stage unceremoniously. Some of these visionaries are given little fanfare, and either shift their career trajectories to television or producing or simply fade from the spotlight altogether. Those innovative creators that can adapt to the changing cinematic scope or have established their specific brand and voice can endure the unknown waters of the entertainment industry.
Many of the directors who have stalled in their careers have been around since the 1970s and ‘80s, and have given fans a myriad of memorable and iconic flicks. Some have disappeared for a while, as director Terrence Malick did for two decades before triumphantly returning, while others like Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly disappear after some box office bombs.
The master of the horror genre John Carpenter was the genius behind the epic 1978 slasher Halloween and countless ‘80s cult classics, while funny-woman Amy Heckerling helmed beloved comedies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Clueless, breaking the glass ceiling in Hollywood. Despite such accolades, these directors and countless others have seemingly vanished from Hollywood as of late. These directors seemed to have fallen off the map, and we miss their work.
Amy Heckerling
The creative mind behind beloved ‘80s and ‘90s classic comedies like Fast Times at Ridgemont High, National Lampoon’s European Vacation, and Clueless, Amy Heckerling crafted quite the impressive directing resume since her 1982 feature film. She found immense success helming sidesplitting flicks that both attracted audiences and garnered appreciation from critics, with her cinematic triumph being the John Travolta and Kirstie Alley comedy Looks Who’s Talking, which earned nearly $300 million at the box office.
Heckerling once said, “I wanted to have hits the way the boys had hits, not like a ‘girl hit’ that made $50 million, but a boy hit that made 100s of millions.” The director slowed down with projects during the 2000s, only directing three pictures, with her final film being 2012’s Vamps. She has worked on episodes of television shows like Gossip Girl and Royalties, but currently has no new movies on the horizon.
Martin Brest
Apparently directing one of the most notoriously panned films of all time can have a profound impact on one’s creative aspirations, which was sadly the case for the immensely talented Martin Brest. Known for the Golden Globe Award and Oscar winning Scent of a Woman and hit comedies Midnight Run and Beverly Hills Cop, Brest was on quite the cinematic roll when he abruptly walked away from his Hollywood career. The 2003 box office bomb Gigli infamously features Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck and attracted scathing reviews from critics, moviegoers, and the entertainment business as a whole.
Unfortunately during filming, the production company behind the disastrous picture took creative control from the director, resulting in a radically re-written and re-shot version of the original film being released. Brest has completely disappeared from the public eye since 2003, aside from an appearance at a screening of Beverly Hills Cop and Midnight Run in 2021.
David Lynch
The critically-acclaimed and decorated David Lynch has had a lucrative career on both the big and small screens, directing renowned films such as Eraserhead, The Elephant Man and The Straight Story as well as co-creating the cult classic murder mystery hit Twin Peaks. Nearly every David Lynch movie has been praised by critics and fascinated moviegoers. Labeled as “the Renaissance man of modern American filmmaking” and praised for his surreal artistic approach to his projects, Lynch seemingly fell off the radar and hasn’t directed a picture since the 2006 experimental film Inland Empire.
He returned to television in 2017 for the Showtime revival of Twin Peaks, teaming up once again with Mark Frost for the 18 episode third season. While doing press for the project Lynch was questioned on whether he retired from film, in which he said, “Things changed a lot…So many films were not doing well at the box office even though they might have been great films and the things that were doing well at the box office weren’t the things that I would want to do.” Lynch was reportedly working on a secret project for Netlfix under the working titles Wisteria and Unrecorded Night, being set to direct and write 13 of its episodes, though it's reported that Netflix scrapped the project; however, Lynch still seems to creating something, as various reports attest to.
Peter Weir
Renowned Australian filmmaker Peter Weir is the force behind the critically lauded box office hits Witness, The Last Wave, and Picnic at Hnaging Rock, pictures that earned the director numerous accolades and would lead to his international recognition and eventual Academy Award nominations. Weir is heavily credited with expanding the acting range of comedians who became great actors, such as Robin Williams in 1989’s Dead Poets Society and Jim Carrey in The Truman Show, as the stars were known at the time for oddball stand-up comedy and zany portrayals and impersonations.
Weir’s final feature film to date was the 2010 survival drama The Way Back, a historical epic about escapees from a Soviet gulag that earned praise from critics but was a financial disappointment. Since then, the respected and gifted director seems to have gone radio silent despite being famous for taking long breaks between projects; at age 77, many speculate that he has indeed retired.
George Lucas
The groundbreaking visionary George Lucas is the genius behind the cinematic juggernaut Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises, having directed, produced and written massive blockbuster hits. The innovator helmed the 1977 Oscar-winning space opera wonder Star Wars, coming-of-age classic American Graffiti and the subsequent Star Wars prequel trilogy. Lucas is one of history’s most financially successful filmmakers and is considered one of the most significant figures of the twentieth century New Hollywood movement.
In 2012, Lucas famously retired from producing large budget blockbuster flicks and instead wanted to focus his attention on crafting smaller, independently budgeted features. The filmmaker is famous for his threats of fully retiring, expressing the sentiment multiple times in the past; he told Empire Magazine, “I’ve always wanted to make movies that were more experimental in nature, and not have to worry about them showing in movie theaters," something attested to by his great experimental first film, THX 1138. While he's only directed two films in 15 years, Lucas is currently attached to the upcoming 2023 fifth installment of the Indiana Jones character.
John Carpenter
Widely regarded as one of the greatest masters of the horror genre, John Carpenter has been a dominating force in Hollywood since the 1970s, having directed horror staples such as Halloween, The Thing, The Fog, and Escape from New York. The filmmaker has established himself as a prominent and innovative creator who has gone on to inspire and influence the works of countless other directors like James Cameron, Quentin Tarantino, and Guillermo del Toro.
Carpenter’s most recent project was 2010’s The Ward, a supernatural horror flick that was his first directorial picture in 10 years and ultimately garnered disappointing reviews. He returned as an executive producer, co-composer, and creative consultant for the latest Halloween installments, but has yet to officially return to the director’s chair. When asked by the Daily Beast in 2021 if he would ever return to movies, Carpenter revealed, “I’m working on a couple things. But I’m not doing anything for a while until the world comes back and rights itself. It’s insane now. It’s nuts!” Carpenter has teased a reboot of his masterpiece The Thing, however.
John McTiernan
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Famous for his mega-hit action flicks like Predator, Die Hard, and The Hunt for Red October, filmmaker John McTiernan had quite the successful run of pictures in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Being attached to such blockbuster hits should have set McTiernan up for an enduring cinema career, but he unfortunately experienced personal turmoil that landed him in hot water with the law. The director was charged in 2006 for an illegal wiretap against a producer on his 2002 film Rollerball, and for both committing perjury and lying to an FBI investigator, resulting in him being incarcerated in a federal prison from April 2013 to February 2014. During his imprisonment, McTiernan filed for bankruptcy and has not found work in the entertainment industry since his release; his last feature film was 2003’s action thriller Basic, which was neither a critical nor commercial success.
Gore Verbinski
Academy Award-winning director, screenwriter and producer Gore Verbinski has been attached to some of the most exciting and memorable movies, namely the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, horror cult classic The Ring and the animated children’s Western Rango. After the box office blunders The Lone Ranger and A Cure for Wellness, the talented creator has not returned to directing duties since 2016; Verbinski was set to take on a project focusing on the Gambit for the X-Men film universe, but dropped out in January 2018 and the spinoff never got made.
His name has also been circulating as the potential director for the sci-fi movie Spaceless, but the script has famously been in development hell; he told Collider in 2021, “I read that script 20 years ago. I still love that project. I don’t know what’s happening with it…I still love it, but I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen with it. It’s hard to shoot a sci-fi on a shoestring.”