10 Directors Who Turned Down Wildly Successful Movies

Hollywood is full of what-ifs, and none are more fascinating than when big-name directors almost directed movies that went on to achieve massive success. These instances get viewers thinking about alternate histories and questioning if some of the biggest franchises of all time or the most inspirational sports movies would have had the same impact with a different director at the helm. There are plenty of movies that have left their mark on popular culture, and it’s impossible to know how they would have turned out with a different creative voice calling the shots.

Many of the best films of all time were almost directed by a different filmmaker, as greats like Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott, and Quentin Tarantino have turned down more movies than they ever made. Iconic series like James Bond, Harry Potter, and Star Wars were offered to plenty of big-name directors who ultimately decided the project wasn’t for them. While it’s impossible to know how these films would have turned out, just to know these directors were offered a chance to make them makes for fascinating food for thought.

10 Ralph Bakshi

Rocky (1976)

While director Ralph Bakshi carved out his legacy, by making cult classic animated movies such as Fritz the Cat, Wizards, and The Lord of the Rings during the 1970s, he also helmed a very different kind of film. That’s because Bakshi revealed that he “threw away millions” after he rejected the chance to direct Rockywhen Sylvester Stallone personally gave him the script and said he wanted him to make it (via Empire Magazine.) This iconic movie would go on to become the most famous underdog boxing story of all time, but it was directed by John G. Avildsen.

Bakshi said Stallone approached him first because he was a fan of his movie Heavy Traffic and that after giving him the script, the future Rocky star asked for a place to sleep. However, Bakshi said he turned it down because he didn’t want to leave animation behind and asserted that had he taken the opportunity he “could have been the richest man in Brooklyn!” While this is a fascinating what-if, it’s hard to know if Bakshi’s Rocky would have included the same iconic montages, training sequences, or emotional heft that made Avildesen’s version such a beloved classic.

9 Ridley Scott

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Making a legacy sequel to such an iconic movie as Top Gun was always going to be a risky move, and it was clear this long-anticipated follow-up would take a filmmaker of extraordinary skill. While the original director, Tony Scott, was sadly no longer alive to oversee a sequel, many felt the next best thing would be his fellow filmmaker brother Ridley, who had made classics like Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator. Ridley even said he was offered Top Gun: Maverick but turned it down (via Hollywood Reporter) because “I don’t want to follow my brother.”

While both Scott brothers each made massively successful movies that have connected with mainstream viewers, Ridley rightly asserted they make very different kinds of films. While Tony was “interested in today,” Ridley said his “stuff is either historic, fantasy, or science fiction.” While to the average film fan, Ridley sounded like the perfect director for Top Gun: Maverick, Tony’s older brother didn’t feel comfortable taking on his sibling's sequels, and this Tom Cruise follow-up was instead directed by Joseph Kosinski to incredible success, grossing $1.496 billion worldwide.

8 Steven Spielberg

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001)

While the Harry Potter film franchise is known today as a notable British series, things were almost very different, as Steven Spielberg could have first led the series. The famed American filmmaker behind family-friendly classics like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, and A.I. Artificial Intelligence was given the opportunity to adapt J.K. Rowling’s beloved fantasy series. However, Spielberg said he had a tough decision to make, and accepting the job would mean having to relocate away from his family in Los Angeles to the United Kingdom.

According to Variety, Spielberg said this decision represented how “art and family will tear you in half” and that there were several films he chose not to make because of this conflict. The first Harry Potter was one of them, which Spielberg envisioned as an animated film that would have looked far different from the beloved Chris Columbus version audiences know and love today. While Spielberg surely would have done something special with this source material, it's hard to imagine anything more iconic than the original film version of Harry Potter.

7 Guillermo Del Toro

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

As one of the most successful movie franchises of all time, it’s no surprise that plenty of major names were in the running to direct the many sequels in the Harry Potter series. One important name that added a darker and more mature tone to the series was Alfonso Cuarón, whose take on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was one of the best in the whole series. However, another legend of fantasy filmmaking, Guillermo del Toro, was also in the running to adapt the third book in J.K. Rowling's iconic series.

While Del Toro has directed some indisputable fantasy classics such as Pan’s Labyrinth and Best Picture winner The Shape of Water, he also has experience with major franchise properties such as his work as co-screenwriter, producer, and almost director of The Hobbit films. However, Del Toro said the one movie he regrets not making was a Harry Potter film (via Independent.) While Del Toro said the movies felt too “bright and happy” for him, when he saw Cuarón’s darker adaptation, he couldn’t help but wish they would ask him to direct a future installment, but that chance never came.

6 Nicolas Winding Refn

Spectre (2015)

From Alfred Hitchcock to Quentin Tarantino, plenty of filmmakers have directed a James Bond movie. One notable example was the Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn, who told the Telegraphhe turned down the fourth movie in Daniel Craig’s era as the MI6 agent 007. While Refn said he was approached by Eon Productions about making the film, he turned it down because he was not interested in franchise work, and the project ultimately went to Sam Mendes.

Instead, Refn decided to carve out his own legacy in the spy genre with a film titled The Avenging Silence, which was described via social media as “Ian Fleming + William Burroughs + NWR = The Avenging Silence” accompanied by images of Fleming's novel Dr. No and Burroughs's novel The Soft Machine. However, despite announcing the project in 2016, The Avenging Silence has yet to be released.

5 Darren Aronofsky

The Wolverine (2013)

The X-Men film series was packed with mutant superheroes who have carved out an important place in popular culture, yet none were as iconic as Hugh Jackman’s portrayal of Wolverine, a hero who has gained even his own spin-off series. The second of these was The Wolverine, directed by James Mangold, although it could have almost been a very different film, as Darren Aronofsky was originally hired to direct the project. Aronofsky was known for his transgressive and psychologically probing work, such as Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, which pushed audiences outside their comfort zone.

When Aronofsky was first linked to The Wolverine, Jackman promised this new version would be “out of the box” and a much darker version with “meat on the bones” that would leave audiences thinking long after they leave the theater (via Vulture.) However, Aronofsky exited the project after realizing it would take him out of the country for too long, and Mangold stepped in to take his place (via Hollywood Reporter.) The results were fine, and The Wolverine grossed an impressive $414 million at the box office (via Box Office Mojo), but it didn’t exactly reinvent the character in the way Jackman promised Aronofsky’s version would.

4 Ava DuVernay

Black Panther (2018)

Ava DuVernay gained widespread prominence for her powerful exploration of Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement in the excellent historical drama Selma. This effective portrayal put her in the running to put her stamp on the Marvel Cinematic Universe by directing Black Panther. As a Marvel hero with a rich legacy in addressing racial issues and whose setting in the fictional country of Wakanda could have given DuVernay a lot to work with, the director still decided to reject the project.

While DuVernay said it would be “pretty revolutionary” to lead to a film with a Black superhero as the star, she ultimately realized that having to fit into the MCU meant “It really wasn’t going to be an Ava DuVernay film” (via Vulture.) Instead, Black Panther was directed by Ryan Coogler and starred Chadwick Boseman as the titular hero. Black Panther went on to gross over $1 billion and became one of the most successful and critically acclaimed entries in the entire MCU.

3 David Fincher

Spider-Man (2002)

Long before the Marvel Cinematic Universe or even Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy revolutionized the superhero genre, Sam Raimi was adding humor and intrigue to the legacy of Peter Parker with his Spider-Man series. While it’s hard to imagine any other director putting their stamp on this Tobey Maguire-led series, the Fight Club director David Fincher was also in the running at one point. However, rather than tell an origin story of how Spider-Man got his powers, Fincher wanted to skip all this preamble and get straight to the action.

According to the Guardian, Fincher’s Spider-Man skipped the “bitten by a radioactive spider” and got straight to an adult Peter Parker, but the studio wasn’t interested. Fincher said that although origin stories mean a lot to people, he felt they were “dumb” and “there’s a lot of things I can do in my life and that’s just not one of them.” While movie executives may not have gone for Fincher’s idea at the time, after Sony rebooted the franchise for a second time with Andrew Garfield, they opted to skip Spider-Man’s origin altogether when Tom Holland joined the MCU.

2 Quentin Tarantino

Men in Black (1997)

Quentin Tarantino has been attached to plenty of unrealized projects and has had many opportunities to lead widely successful franchises such as James Bond and Star Trek. Another property that Tarantino was offered was the first Men in Black movie, which came out in 1997, after the director had already left his mark on the 1990s with iconic releases like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. During this time, Tarantino told the New York Times that he was offered Men in Black back when studios wrongly assumed he was interested in directing other people’s scripts.

Tarantino said it wasn’t just Men in Black he was offered, as he was also given the chance to make his version of Speed. While both of these movies became widely successful, Tarantino carved out his own legacy as a writer-director and remains one of the most exciting voices in Hollywood whose new films still feel like major cinematic events. The Men in Black franchise would become a major family-friendly hit, but its mix of action and comedy was too mild for Tarantino’s ultra-violent instincts.

1 David Lynch

Return of the Jedi (1983)

The late filmmaker David Lynch created several incredible cinematic worlds that were characterized by surreal imagery and a dreamlike logic. While Lynch was notoriously guarded about his work and avoided mainstream productions and franchise films, during the 1980s he was far more open to major projects and even directed an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s Dune, which he later disowned because he was so unhappy with the studio interferences. Consider this, it seems like Lynch made the right decision when he turned down George Lucas’ offer for him to direct Return of the Jedi.

Although the idea of a Lynch-led Star Wars movie was a fascinating proposition, the director told Lucas that he had “next door to zero interest” in taking on the space opera franchise (via Den of Geek.) While Lynch said he “always admired George Lucas” and that he felt connected to him as “a guy who does what he loves,” the difference between the two of them was that “what George loves makes hundreds of billions of dollars.” Instead, Lynch would continue following his own path and make classics like Blue Velvet, Twin Peaks, and Mulholland Drive in the subsequent years.

Sources: Empire Magazine (Physical Copy), Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Independent, Telegraph, X, Vulture, Hollywood Reporter, Box Office Mojo, Vulture, Guardian, New York Times, Den of Geek

trendglee