Musings of a Cinephile: What Happened to the Big Name Director?

A Stephen Spielberg Film! A James Cameron Event! A Spike Lee Joint!

When I was a budding cinephile in the 1980s and 1990s, directors were everything. I mean, sure, the movie stars drove box office, but a good director could open a movie or turn a box office flop into a cult classic. There were the Blockbuster Builders, such as Wolfgang Petersen (Outbreak, Air Force One, The Perfect Storm), Jan de Bont (Speed, Twister, The Haunting), and Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers, Robocop). Then were the Scrappy Little Guys, such as Robert Rodriguez (Desperado, From Dusk Til Dawn, Sin City), Walter Hill (The Warriors, Streets of Fire, Red Heat), and Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma). Then there were the Curious New Talents, whose first films had people excited to see what their output would lead to, such as Christopher Nolan (Debut Film: Following. Breakout Film: Memento), Paul Thomas Anderson (Debut Film: Hard Eight. Breakout film: Boogie Nights), and Alex Proyas (Debut Film AND Breakout Film: The Crow).

Now, to be fair, some of these filmmakers are still making movies. Jan de Bont and Wolfgang Petersen, however, haven’t made a mainstream Hollywood movie in over a decade. Wolfgang Petersen passed away in 2022, but it had been years before that since he made a major movie. John Carpenter has effectively retired from filmmaking, or at least directing. Alex Proyas’s last film, 2016’s Gods of Egypt, was a box office failure and he spends his time now trying to get new movies off the ground and railing on social media against the Hollywood system (and I love his take on things; give him a follow!) Spielberg, Cameron, PT Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Kevin Smith, they’re all still active and making movies, which I’m happy to see. (Although aside from Nolan and Cameron, it’s hard to argue that they’re of the same caliber as their older films.) But my question isn’t so much what happened to the big names of yesterday but rather where are the big names of TODAY?

Let’s look at some of the biggest movies of recent years and who directed them.

Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig, 2023 – We’ll start with the big behemoth: Barbie. Greta Gerwig, formerly an actress, has been establishing her bona fides for the past several years directing movies like Lady Bird and Little Women, which were critically acclaimed but performed mildly at the box office. She is officially a big name now thanks to the success of Barbie. But let’s be honest; nobody was going to see BarbieBECAUSE it was directed by Gerwig. More people probably heard of her thanks to the hubbub about her not getting nominated for an Oscar than had any idea who she was before that.

Spider-Man: No Way Home, directed by Jon Watts, 2021 – Who? Jon Watts? Who the heck is that? I’m actually asking because I – a film reviewer for over 20 years – have no idea. Turns out, he directed a pretty good Kevin Bacon thriller called Cop Carseveral years ago before helming 2021’s highest grossing movie. And I applaud Marvel for their method of choosing outside-the-box directors who come from outside of the superhero blockbuster world, but still… Who? Will all the success of No Way Home translate to career success for Watts? Only time will tell.

The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, directed by Francis Lawrence, 2023 – Admittedly, Lawrence had helmed several previous Hunger Games movies, plus underrated but enjoyable thrillers Constantine and I Am Legend. But outside of the Hunger Games franchise, he hasn’t made a movie since 2007. Sure, he doesn’t need to, financially speaking, but who is he as a director? We have no real idea.

Top Gun: Maverick, directed by Joseph Kosinski, 2022 – Okay, I included this film on the list even though I’m a big fan of the director Joseph Kosinski, who also gave usTron: Legacy and the underrated Tom Cruise sci-fi thriller, Oblivion. I think he has the potential to become a big name director, even if the average film fan has no idea who he is. His underwhelming firefighter drama Only the Brave and the muddled Netflix thriller Spiderhead don’t really help him, though.

Jurassic World: Dominion, directed by Colin Trevorrow, 2022 – If you need the final installment of a franchise trilogy to completely disappoint audiences, Trevorrow is your man, having helmed both Dominion and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Admittedly, he also directed one of my favorite films of the last decade with the little-seen Safety Not Guaranteed, but is anyone rushing out to see a Colin Treverrow film after those two big-splash disappointments? Magic Eight Ball says, “Doubtful.”

Fast & Furious 7, directed by James Wan, 2015 – The highest grossing film in theFast & Furious franchise was directed by James Wan, who might be the closest thing to a superstar on this list, having also directed Aquaman, The Conjuring, and Saw. But his last two films were the gonzo horror-actioner Malignant and Aquaman 2, which… well, the less said about it, the better. Will his director stock remain high after those two films? We’ll see.

Bad Boys For Life, directed by Adil & Bilal, 2020 – The highest grossing film of the year that theaters went away thanks to COVID, this pair of directors made a trio of little seen films called Black, Rebel, and Gangsta, before directing the third Bad Boysfilm. The first two were directed by Michael Bay, who’s as much of a household name as any director I can think of. I actually liked Bad Boys for Life quite a bit, but I couldn’t have told you who directed it to save my life. Good thing for IMDB!

I could go on and on. There are plenty of names we recognize still making movies. Hell, we give Martin Scorses Oscar nominations every time he makes a movie, just because he’s Scorsese. How else would Killers of the Flower Moon get nominated for Best Picture? But in the time of Intellectual Properties (IPs) ruling the box office, it seems like the director is more and more of an afterthought, with fewer and fewer of their successful films translating into that “name“ status. Who are going to be the future Quentin Tarantinos, James Camerons, John Carpenters? The directors who we write books about and endlessly dissect their entire filmographies? The filmmakers that movie studios make Blu-ray and 4K collections of? I own at least five different Alfred Hitchcock box sets; where’s my Alex Proyas box set? (The Crow, Dark City, I Robot, and Knowing in one collection? I’m drooling just thinking about it!)

And ultimately, why don’t moviegoers care about directors anymore? I recently re-watched Aliens for about the hundredth time on Fox’s new 4K Ultra HD release of the film, and even though I can recite every line by heart, I still marveled at the James Cameron-ness of it all. I contrast that with Jurassic World: Dominion, which is one of the worst blockbusters I’ve seen in ages, and was completely disposable in every way. Would that have been a better movie with a Jan de Bont or Wolfgang Petersen directing it? I have to imagine it would have been.

So what does the future hold for filmmakers? Well, every movie needs a director, so the job security is still there. But I suspect it’s going to be a much more, “you’re only as good as your last box office hit” mentality in the future. But hey, maybe that’s a good thing. If your career is on the line, maybe you’ll be forced to become a more innovative or daring filmmaker, which will lead to better movies, which will lead to more directors getting recognized by their name alone. Perhaps the future of filmmaking isn’t so grim after all…