All The Tropes

Creator Killer: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Creator Killer (view source)

Revision as of 01:49, 8 April 2014

640 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
m (Mass update links)
m (Mass update links)
Line 4:
Compare with [[Genre Killer]] and [[Franchise Killer]]. [[I Thought It Meant|Not to be confused]] with [[Author Existence Failure]], [[Rage Against the Author]] or [[The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You]], where the creator can be ''literally'' killed by his or her work. See [[Star-Derailing Role]] when it happens to the performers. See [[Old Shame]] for an old work which a creator refuses to let see the light of day, but which by itself probably won't destroy their credibility. Contrast [[Breakthrough Hit]] (when the work makes the creator a big name) and [[Win Back the Crowd]] (when the work makes the creator a big name after a [[Creator Killer]]).
 
A good number of these entries have been [[Vindicated Byby Cable]].
{{examples}}
 
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Fractale]]'' was conceived as a way for its director, Yamakan, to make [[Kyoto Animation]] regret firing him, with all the resources put into it you'd expect with a goal like that. He was so sure of its success that he said he'd step down if it did poorly. The end result was said to be good, if not great, by most people who watched it to the end. All five or so of them. Yamakan probably would have had to step down even if he hadn't explicitly staked his career on it doing well.
* Ironically, ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'', the biggest cash cow of [[4Kids! Entertainment]], almost became this to them; TV Tokyo and NAS yanked the license and sued them over a deal they made with [[FUNimation]], driving 4Kids into bankruptcy within days, though [http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-12-31/4kids-yu-gi-oh-license-is-still-in-force-court-rules 4Kids was able to subvert this trope and keep its license.]
 
 
== Comic Books ==
* The infamous crossover ''[[Death Mate]]'' is often accused of killing [[Valiant Comics]]. (The other side, [[Image Comics]], did recover from it.)
* After the infamous [[The Clone Saga|Clone Saga]], it was decided that the ''[[Spider-Man (Comic Book)|Spider-Man]]'' titles were to be cancelled and relaunched with new number ones alongside a miniseries written and drawn by [[John Byrne]] that would retell Spider-Man's origin. This reboot was notable in that one writer - Howard Mackie - would be looking after both titles. The reboot was heavily promoted with garnered much anticipation amongst fans and critics, with Mackie claiming that they would "fix" the books and make things "fun" again. But things soured after the reboot where Mackie had Spider-Man face off against lackluster villains, engage in weird plots like facing off against vampires, supernatural villains, an alien-infested senator who was set up as the [[Big Bad]] of his arc, and- most notably- "killed" Mary Jane Watson. Fan and critical reaction was sour, and soon Mackie's plans were outright scuttled - he was replaced on one of the books by Paul Jenkins, and was given just enough time to wrap up his run and bring back Mary Jane before he was pulled from the title and replaced by [[J. Michael Straczynski]]. Mackie's career never recovered from the debacle. In the decade since then, Mackie rarely worked in comics with his last work being a six-issue mini-series that was to serve as a "reinterpretation" of what was to actually have happened in the initial Clone Saga alongside Tom Defalco.
** The Clone Saga itself also nearly killed Marvel as a whole, making it another example. There were ''many'' organizational problems with Marvel at the time, which were one reason The Clone Saga ran overlong and ended up being such a badly-regarded story, and while the series itself sold very well at the time the damage to the corporate culture was long-lasting and can still be felt today. These are partially documented in the web series ''Life of Reilly''.
* [[Chuck Austen]] is, for all intents and purposes, one of the most hated writers in comics, owning mostly to his poor characterization and story telling, along with his attitude towards any criticisms. But, it wasn't until his ''[[Superman (Comic Book)|Superman]]'' run that his career as a writer really died. After being kicked out of Marvel for screwing up a lot of books, DC hired him to write Superman...and he was fired shortly afterwards and blacklisted from comics after his short run had a terribly written love triangle based on Austen's unfounded hatred of Lois Lane. He hasn't done anything worth mentioning since.
 
 
== Film ==
* The failure of ''[[Titan AEA.E.|Titan: AE]]'' brought down both [[Don Bluth]]'s career and Fox Animation Studios.
** Before that, ''[[Rock -a -Doodle]]'' sank Bluth's ''original'' studio.
* ''[[Cutthroat Island]]'', one of the biggest box office flops of all time, bankrupted the studio Carolco, as well as destroying Geena Davis' career and her then-husband Renny Harlin's respectability as a director. The flop of this film (as well as that of ''[[The Long Kiss Goodnight]]'', also starring Davis and directed by Harlin) is widely credited with destroying their marriage, as Harlin had pushed for Davis, then known for comedic roles, to headline the two blockbusters. It also [[Genre Killer|killed off]] the pirate movie genre [[Back From the Dead|until]] ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' came along.
* ''[[Final Fantasy: theThe Spirits Within (Anime)|Final Fantasy the Spirits Within]]'' killed Square Pictures and nearly killed the merger between Squaresoft and Enix<ref> the companies did eventually merge into [[Square Enix]] in 2003</ref>, and pressured the guy who came up with the idea for ''[[Final Fantasy (Franchise)|Final Fantasy]]'' -- probably saving [[Square Soft]] from shutting down entirely back in the 1980s -- into resigning from the company, since the film was his [[Box Office Bomb|100-million-dollar-losing project]]. To put this into perspective, this was during the [[Turn of the Millennium]], a time when Squaresoft was one of ''the most'' successful and dominant video game companies.
* ''[[HeavensHeaven's Gate (Filmfilm)|Heavens Gate]]'' contributed to the collapse of its studio, [[United Artists]]. Even more infamously, it ended the "[[New Hollywood]]" [[Fall of the Studio System|post-studio-system]] era in which director/auteurs were [[Protection From Editors|given carte blanche]] to do pretty much whatever they wanted. Thus, not only did it kill a studio built by some of the first Hollywood stars, but ended an era that produced many of the best films in history.
** It particularly wrecked the career of its director, Michael Cimino. In the late '70s, Cimino had won the Academy Award for directing ''[[The Deer Hunter]]'', picking up his [[Auteur License]] in the process, and was then basically given a blank check to direct his [[Magnum Opus]]. ''Heaven's Gate'' was this opus, however, and Cimino is known to this day as "the guy who brought down Hollywood with his ego". He did manage to direct four more films after that, but they all bombed.
* ''[[The Postman (Filmfilm)|The Postman]]'' basically ended [[Kevin Costner]]'s run as being star, director, and producer of his own films. He's had steady work as an actor in plenty of movies since then, but he has yet to recover his "A-list" star power. ''[[Waterworld]]'' didn't help him either, though at least that was a financial success.
* Alex Cox, best known for ''[[Repo Man]]'', had his feature career destroyed by the avant-garde film ''Walker''. Since then, he's spent his life barely scraping together funds to make [[Direct to Video|direct-to-DVD]] films.
* The failure of ''[[Raise the Titanic]]'' is often credited with bringing down Lew Grade's film and TV companies - Grade quipped that "It would have been cheaper to Lower The Atlantic" - although they'd been in trouble for some time before that and stayed in business for a couple years after. The subsequent failure of ''[[The Legend Of The Lone Ranger]]'' in 1981 (a failure perhaps ensured by the producers suing the original Lone Ranger, Clayton Moore, and forcing him to relinquish his mask) might have been the last straw for ITC. It also disgusted the original book's author, [[NUMA Series|Clive Cussler]], [[Creator Backlash|so much that he refused to sell film rights]] to his books for 25 years.
* ''[[Batman and Robin (Filmfilm)|Batman and Robin]]'' did this to [[Joel Schumacher]], who is completely blamed for killing the franchise until [[The Dark Knight Saga|the reboot]]. Before then, Schumacher was known for his role in directing ''[[The Lost Boys]]'', ''[[St. ElmosElmo's Fire]]'', and ''[[Falling Down]]''. He sort of recovered in the aftermath, with military drama ''[[Tigerland]]'' picking up some surprise indie cred and ''[[Phone Booth (Filmfilm)|Phone Booth]]'' becoming a sleeper hit, but otherwise his career afterwards has been forgettable.
** ''Batman & Robin'' also arguably derailed the careers of [[Uma Thurman]] (''[[The Avengers (1998 (Filmfilm)|The Avengers 1998]]'' didn't help either), Chris O'Donnell, and Alicia Silverstone. Thurman finally made a comeback when she reteamed with [[Quentin Tarantino]] on the ''[[Kill Bill]]'' saga. Likewise, O'Donnell has recently kept himself afloat with his starring role on the TV series ''[[NCIS: Los Angeles]]''. In fact, one can argue that Schumacher, who went on to turn out hits like ''[[Eight MM|8mm]]'' and ''[[Phantom of the Opera]]'', is the only one who got out unscathed: even [[George Clooney]] had to completely reinvent himself to be taken seriously.
** An often overlooked fact is that [[Mis Blamed|Schumacher is not completely at fault]]. His original version of ''[[Batman Forever (Film)|Batman Forever]]'' was much more in line with the tone of the [[Tim Burton]] films, but [[Executive Meddling|higher-ups at WB]] had it significantly edited to make it more family-friendly and marketable to children.
* [[M. Night Shyamalan]] films have been steadily declining in critical acclaim since ''[[The Village]]'' (and, more specifically, the confusing as hell [[Sci Fi Channel]] documentary that accompanied it), but ''[[The Last Airbender (Film)|The Last Airbender]]'' appears to be the point where Shyamalan's name became permanently soiled to the point where even his name, when attached to any film, automatically marks said film as box office poison, as seen with the horror movie ''[[Devil (Film)|Devil]]''. He didn't direct it, but simply being a producer and having the marketing imply that he had a part in any way was enough to cause ''laughter in the theaters'' when the trailers were first released.
* ''[[Battlefield Earth (Filmfilm)|Battlefield Earth]]'' was such a terrible film that Franchise Pictures lost huge amounts of money. However, the final nail in the coffin was when Franchise was hit by a lawsuit from investors who accused the company of [[Useful Notes/Hollywood Accounting|deliberately inflating the film's budget to pad their coffers]]. Franchise Pictures lost the lawsuit and declared bankruptcy. [[John Travolta (Creator)]]'s reputation got a bad rap due to this movie, but he later [[Career Resurrection|bounced back]]. ''[[Battlefield Earth]]'' also killed moviegoers' chances of taking any [[L. Ron Hubbard]] or Scientology film seriously.
* Fred Dekker (director of the cult classics ''[[Night of the Creeps (Film)|Night of the Creeps]]'' and ''[[The Monster Squad]]'') was brought on by Orion Pictures to write the screenplay for and direct ''[[Robo CopRoboCop]] 3''. Given the mixed [[Franchise Killer|reaction]] to the film, it's not exactly surprising that he hasn't directed anything since then. Aside from a gig as a consulting producer on ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise (TV)|Star Trek Enterprise]]'' (itself nearly a [[Franchise Killer]], and that was way back in 2001), he hasn't helmed anything for the last twenty years. Better yet, it was delayed for two years as its production company, Orion Pictures, went bankrupt (although it wasn't the sole reason).
* Just ''barely'' avoided by ''[[Cleopatra (Film)|Cleopatra]]'', which nearly bankrupted [[Twentieth Century Fox]] with its bloated production. And again when, after ''[[The Sound of Music]]'', they bankrolled several big-budget musicals (''[[Doctor Dolittle]]'', ''Star!'', ''[[Hello Dolly|Hello, Dolly!]]'') that failed to recoup their budgets. Yes, 20th Century Fox nearly went bankrupt ''twice'' [[Fall of the Studio System|in the '60s]].
* [[Frank Miller]]'s bizarre ''[[The Spirit (Filmfilm)|The Spirit]]'' movie probably did more damage to his career than anything else. This movie has at least ensured that Miller will ''never'' be the sole director of a major motion picture ever again.
* The failure of ''[[Superman IV]]'' most likely ruined the Cannon Group's (who didn't give special priority to the sequel, as they were already overstretched with other productions at the time) chances at becoming a legitimate film studio. Not too surprisingly, Cannon closed up shop by the dawn of the 1990s.
* [[Ralph Bakshi]] has had brushes with this. He pioneered adult animation with ''[[Fritz the Cat (Animationanimation)|Fritz the Cat]]'' and ''[[Heavy Traffic]]''. Then people threw a shitfit over his satire ''[[Coonskin]]'' (mostly due to bad marketing and [[Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch]]). Another movie he was making at the time, ''[[Hey Good Lookin']]'', got pushed back over this controversy. Luckily, he bounced back with his fantasy films, like ''[[Wizards]]'' and ''[[The Lord of the Rings (Animationanimation)|The Lord of the Rings]]'', and later went on to work on TV shows like ''[[Mighty Mouse the New Adventures]]'' and the TV version of ''[[Dr. Seuss|The Butter Battle Book]]''. And then he did ''[[Cool World]]'', which suffered from [[Executive Meddling]]. The poor commercial response to this one resulted in [[Twentieth Century Fox]] pulling funding from a ''Wizards'' sequel. He made a TV movie, ''[[Cool and Thethe Crazy]]'' afterward, and another TV series, ''[[Spicy City]]'', which he left when faced with more [[Executive Meddling]]. He tried to make another movie, ''The Last Days Of Coney Island'', but it's stuck in [[Development Hell]].
* The failure of ''[[The Golden Compass]]'' in the US, along with other films released in 2007, led Time Warner to absorb New Line Cinema into [[Warner Bros]], while also folding New Line's arthouse label Picturehouse. Today, New Line exists as a division of Warner Bros. Pictures, mainly releasing films based on their properties.
** The saddest part? New Line could have avoided its fate had it held onto the rights to distribute ''[[The Golden Compass]]'' outside the US. Instead, they sold off the rights to foreign distributors in order to cover the film's budget, meaning that they had to rely on the highly religious US market to turn out in droves for a film that was whipping up controversy even before release due to [[His Dark Materials|its source material's]] anti-religious themes. As a result, they lost out on [[Germans Love David Hasselhoff|more than 80% of the film's $372 million global revenue]]. For Time Warner, this was the final straw that convinced them that the people in charge of New Line had no clue what they were doing.
* ''[[The Poseidon Adventure|Poseidon]]'' has pretty much ended Wolfgang Petersen's career as a director, despite a high quality track record before it (such as ''[[Das Boot]]'', ''[[In the Line of Fire]]'', ''[[Air Force One (Filmfilm)|Air Force One]]'' and ''[[The Perfect Storm]]''). Despite having since been connected to other projects since then (mostly lesser quality, outside of an adaptation of ''[[Ender's Game]]''), those projects seem to get squashed during pre-production.
* Actor [[Charles Laughton]] was never given a chance to direct a second film after the failure of ''[[The Night of the Hunter (Film)|The Night of the Hunter]]''. A damn shame too, because the film [[Vindicated Byby History|has since been recognized as a classic]].
* Martin Brest retired after ''[[Gigli]]''. The [[Executive Meddling|studio interference]] and bad test screenings became too much for him.
* [[Robert Zemeckis]] was a pioneer who had directed such classics as ''[[Forrest Gump]]'', ''[[Back to The Future]]'', and ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit?]]''. His working with motion-capture led to him making ''[[The Polar Express]]''... but as soon as [[Uncanny Valley]] set in with his works, the quality started going downhill. His studio's latest film, ''[[Mars Needs Moms]]'', was such a box office failure that now the studio has been dismantled (and some sources hint that Disney ''expected'' the film to fail at the box office), with the planned ''[[Yellow Submarine (Animation)|Yellow Submarine]]'' remake now canceled, and the fate of the ''Roger Rabbit'' sequel left uncertain. Though his studio has folded, his directing career hasn't faded yet as he's got several projects on the table (even being offered the ''[[Superman]]'' project back in December 2010).
* Music video director Joseph Kahn, once expected to emerge as the next [[Michael Bay]], wouldn't make another feature film for seven years after the flop of the 2004 action movie ''[[Torque]]''.<ref> And for good measure, his new film, the teen slasher parody ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6q9v_ak40w Detention]'', features a strong [[Take That]] to ''Torque''.</ref> Intended as a [[Spiritual Successor]] to ''[[The Fast and Thethe Furious]]'' (only {{smallcaps|[[Recycled in Space|on motorcycles!]]}}) and produced by the same guy, Neal H. Moritz, the film was shelved for a year before release and was universally trashed by the time it was released. The careers of its stars (apart from [[Ice Cube]]) were also [[Star-Derailing Role|derailed]] by the film.
* Joe Eszterhas was, in the early '90s, '''the''' most powerful screenwriter in Hollywood - so much so that he received record amounts of money for his screenplays (including ''[[Flashdance]]'' and ''[[Basic Instinct]]'', which was the highest amount of money paid for a single script at the time). The 1995 release of ''[[Showgirls]]'' put studio executives at odds with him, but it went on to become a [[Cult Classic]] (much in line with Eszterhas' view that the film was [[Parody Retcon|intended to be satire]]). What followed were a string of underperforming and failed scripts for films such as the [[CSI: Miami|David Caruso]] vehicle ''Jade'' and the Sharon Stone flick ''Sliver''. Things briefly improved with the [[Write What You Know|semi-autobiographical]] ''Telling Lies in America'', which was well-reviewed and a modest hit on the indie circuit, but failed to get widely distributed. However, the 1998 film ''Burn Hollywood Burn: An Alan Smithee Film'' (which Eszterhas produced, wrote and starred in) was an unmitigated disaster and complete flop that all but ensured he would never sell a script to Hollywood ever again. Eszterhas ended up settling down to a quiet life as an author in Ohio - to date, his only screenwriting work of note has been on a 2006 Hungarian film called ''Children of Glory''. He tried to come back with a [[Mel Gibson (Creator)|Mel Gibson]] film based on the life of Judas Maccabeus, but Warner Bros. shut that project down, allegedly because the script that Eszterhas came up with wasn't powerful enough, but Eszterhas is accusing Gibson of sabotaging the film to make sure his career stays dead.
** ''Burn, Hollywood, Burn'' also killed the career of respected director Arthur Hiller, who was known for making ''[[Love Story]]'' and being one of the hardest-working directors in the industry (to the point that he had at least one project being released every single year until 1997). Just before ''Burn'' was released, Hiller had his name removed from the credits - which resulted in the unintended [[Irony]] of "Alan Smithee" (the alias used for an anonymous director) directing a film that starred a character named Alan Smithee. The Writers Guild of America discontinued the use of the alias after the movie came out, and Hiller's career was in shambles. The only thing he's directed since then was the film ''Pucked'' (starring Jon Bon Jovi), which ended up being rebranded under the "[[National Lampoon]]" banner and released [[Direct to Video]].
* The British film company Goldcrest never really recovered from the one-two punch of 1985's ''Revolution'' (a massively expensive movie about the American Revolution with the [[Sarcasm Mode|ideal]] casting of [[Al Pacino]] and Nastassja Kinski)<ref> -which may explain why it was 15 years until [[The Patriot|we had another one]]-</ref> and 1986's ''Absolute Beginners'' (a hugely expensive musical set in the 1950s which [[Star-Derailing Role|derailed star Eddie O'Connell's career]] (his [[IMDb]] page is very skimpy after the film, and he has nothing after 2003), and served as a speed bump for Patsy Kensit's). See the book ''My Indecision Is Final'' for the whole sordid story.
* The man behind the ''[[Sgt. PeppersPepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Film)|Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band]]'' film was Robert Stigwood, owner of RSO Records, producer of smash hits ''[[Saturday Night Fever]]'' and ''[[Grease]]'', and long-time manager of [[The Bee Gees]]. The absolute failure of this film was the beginning of the end of the Bee Gees' relationship with Stigwood (who felt they were dragged into his ego project), and was the first step in the shocking plummet of Stigwood's movie career - his movies post-''Pepper'' included ''Times Square'', ''Staying Alive'', and ''Grease 2''. Then he gave up.
* Jared Hess was expected to be one of the next great comedic directors after having box office hits in ''[[Napoleon Dynamite]]'' and ''[[Nacho Libre]]''. Then he released ''Gentlemen Broncos'', a movie that was such a disaster with critics (it was one of the ten worst reviewed films of 2009) and audiences (the film grossed just $110,000, a four-hundredth of ''[[Napoleon Dynamite]]'''s gross) that it irreparably destroyed Hess's career. He has not made a film since. He would later helm a loose [[Animated Adaptation]] of ''[[Napoleon Dynamite]]'', but it got cancelled after only one season.
* Executives at Orion Pictures blamed their destruction on ''[[UHF (Film)|UHF]]'', the wacky comedy starring [["Weird Al" Yankovic (Music)|Weird Al Yankovic]] which they considered the fork in the road for the studio. They had ridiculously high hopes for it ... hopes so ridiculously high that they figured why not pit it against ''[[Indiana Jones and Thethe Last Crusade]]''? The loss of money (as well as the loss of critical favor which they had been building throughout the 80s) seemed to mentally break the studio's already-disheveled management: aside from ''[[Dances Withwith Wolves]]'' and ''[[The Silence of the Lambs]]'', the entirety of Orion's post-''UHF'' releases were one poorly-thought-out disaster after another. (They also sold the [[Cash Cow Franchise]] that could have saved them, the big-screen adaptation of ''[[The Addams Family (TV)|The Addams Family]]'', to Paramount prior to release.)
** The problem was really one of scheduling: ''UHF'' had tested amazingly well and it has an enormous following. If it had come out any time other than summer 1989, which not only saw Indy, but also [[Licence to Kill (Film)|a Bond movie]], [[Star Trek V: theThe Final Frontier (Film)|a Star Trek movie]], the ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' sequel, ''[[Lethal Weapon]] 2'' and, oh, yeah, the first [[Tim Burton]] ''[[Batman (Filmfilm)|Batman]]'', it might have done a lot better.
* The failure of ''[[Ishtar]]'' killed Elaine May's directing career, though she's still done well as a writer for such films as ''[[The Birdcage]]'' and ''[[Primary Colors]]''.
* Writer/Director Kerry Conran started and ended his career with ''[[Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow]]''. He had been set to follow it up by directing the film adaptation of ''[[John Carter of Mars]]'', but apparently got fired within hours of the opening weekend numbers for ''Sky Captain'' coming in. [[Avoid the Dreaded G Rating|If only he had thrown an F word into the Sky Captain film somewhere...]]
* The critical panning and the commercial disappointment of ''[[The Grudge]] 2'' killed any chance of director Takashi Shimizu ever directing another American film and lost any popularity he had with audiences in his native Japan. It massively stalled the career of its lead, [[Amber Tamblyn]], who took about 3 years before getting another semi-major role (The Unusuals) and another 2 years before getting a recurring role on ''[[House MD]]'' which will probably start her career up again.
* Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel (who co-created ''[[Max Headroom]]'' and whose only other feature film directing gig was the 1988 remake of the thriller ''D.O.A.'') haven't directed a feature film since the 1993 critical and box office disaster that was the film adaptation of ''[[Super Mario Bros. (Filmfilm)|Super Mario Bros]]'' The film in general had a very [[Troubled Production]] with numerous rewrites, running behind schedule, and budget restraints.
* Media Home Entertainment, one of the four "mini-majors" in the home video industry covering a large library of VHS releases in many diverse genres (alongside sublabel Hi-Tops Video releasing childrens' titles), collapsed in 1990 when Gerald Ronson, the leader of Media Home Entertainment parent company Heron Communications, was convicted of securities fraud due to his role in the Guinness share trading fraud in the UK, eventually closing shop in 1993.
* Vestron Pictures had had a huge success in 1987 courtesy of ''[[Dirty Dancing]]'', a film they had originally planned to release in theaters for only a weekend, and then send it straight to home video, since they had originally been in the video distribution business long before entering film production. Unfortunately, they followed it up with a series of flops, all of them B-Movies at a time when the public actually wanted more A Movies, and these flops, coupled with the fact that many of their former clients were now forming their own home video divisions and thus no longer needed their services, caused Vestron's parent company, Vestron, Inc., to go bankrupt in 1990.
* The near franchise killing performance of ''[[Star Trek Nemesis (Film)|Star Trek Nemesis]]'' pretty much ended the directing career of Stuart Baird, who infamously wasn't at all familiar with ''[[Star Trek: theThe Next Generation (TV)|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' going in (a point ''[[The Onion]]'' did not miss when they covered his [[DVD Commentary]] for their "Commentary Tracks Of The Damned" feature). Baird actually got the directing job in large part due to the editing work he did for Paramount's ''[[Mission Impossible (Filmfilm)|Mission Impossible]] II'' and ''[[Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Film)|Lara Croft Tomb Raider]]''.
* Surprisingly averted with Uwe Boll, despite the negative reception of any film he makes. He skirts this troupe only because [[Tyson Zone|no one expects anything from him]], and so [[Refuge in Audacity|no one will tie enough money to him to call it a big enough failure to get him to stop.]]
** In fact, for a while, some investors were tying money to him in anticipation of his films failing--so they could get generous tax writeoffs (for a time, German tax law allowed investors in German-owned films to write off their investments, including investing borrowed money and writing off loan-related fees, and only required them to pay taxes on any profits the film made; if the film lost money, they got a writeoff instead).
* Unlike many other action stars, [[Steven Seagal]] had an anomalous career of appearing in hits right from the start (compared to Arnold, for example, who had several bad films under his belt before he starred as ''The Terminator''). Following the success of ''[[Under Siege]]'', his ego got the better of him and he demanded that [[Warner Bros]] finance his pet project ''[[On Deadly Ground]]'', an environmental action pic in which he was the star and director. Its critical and financial failure ended his directorial career, and his acting career took a tremendous hit with it. Since then, his films steadily became worse until he had a brief resurrection with ''Exit Wounds''. An attempt to followup on that success with ''[[Half Past Dead]]'' effectively killed his career and left him on direct-to-DVD films for the next decade.
* Ever wonder why Bruce Jenner's only feature film was ''[[Cant Stop The Music]]''? Blame it on poor timing of its release (disco had just become [[So Last Season]] by the time this film was released).
* While none of [[Jonathan Frakes]]'s cinematic directorial efforts quite matched the success he experienced with his debut on ''[[Star Trek: First Contact (Film)|Star Trek First Contact]]'', his film directing career was well and truly torpedoed by the critical and commercial flop that was the live-action ''[[Thunderbirds]]'' movie. Since then, he's had to return to television directing.
* While ''[[John Carter (Filmfilm)|John Carter]]'' hasn't been proven a [[Stillborn Franchise]] ''yet'', at least one head has already rolled as a direct result of the film's disappointing box office performance: Disney Studios leader Rich Ross was fired just weeks after Disney predicted they'd lose $200 million dollars on the project (considering the budget, though, the actual losses amount to just less than $''100'' million at this point).
** The film's box office also led to head of marketing MT Carney (who had never worked in film before Disney hired her in 2010) to resign, since she was partially responsible for the film's infamously bad ad campaign.
* [[Diablo Cody]] broke into Hollywood with the highly-acclaimed film ''[[Juno]]''. Her follow-up, ''[[Jennifer's Body]]'', did ''not'' garner as much praise - critics picked apart the poor performance by [[Megan Fox]] and, more damningly for the creator, began to question Cody's overreliance on [[Totally Radical]] dialogue (a problem numerous critics had with ''Juno''). With the failure of ''[[Young Adult]]'', it seems Diablo Cody's star has risen and fallen.
Line 83:
* Arrested Development's sophomore album, despite being highly regarded, pretty much ended the group's mainstream career ([[Germans Love David Hasselhoff|at least in America]]).
* Digable Planets was an up-and-coming jazz-rap group who were well on their way to stardom thanks to cross-genre appeal of their single "Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat)" and debut album ''Reachin'''. Then their second album, ''Blowout Comb'', bombed despite critical acclaim. The band disbanded soon after. Most people believe the reason why ''Blowout Comb'' failed was due to it being more socio-political and Afrocentric.
* [[A Tribe Called Quest (Music)|A Tribe Called Quest]] broke up after the polarizing ''The Love Movement'', although this had more to do with members Phife Dawg and Q-Tip being unable to get along with each other. Phife's health issues led to the group reuniting to pay for his medical expenses, and there's been talk of a new album.
* Already hurting from the constant delays and disappointing sales of his ''Brass Knuckles'' album, Nelly's controversial "Tip Drill" video pretty much destroyed his bankability as a mainstream crossover rap artist. His followup would be his last huge album, but his career eventually became [[Never Live It Down|defined by the moment in the vid where he swipes a credit card through some girl's butt.]].
* Peter Frampton's follow-up to his highly popular live album ''Frampton Comes Alive!'' was ''I'm In You'', a low-key experimental funk album. Despite the title track managing to become his biggest hit (#2 on the US pop charts), the album confounded his teenybopper fans, and the combination of the album's failure and [[Star-Derailing Role|his role in the film]] ''[[Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band]]'' the next year completely obliterated his career. To add insult to injury, [[Frank Zappa]] spoofed the album with the song, ''I Have Been In You''.
Line 90:
** ''Second Coming'' by [[The Stone Roses]], which had been delayed by [[Executive Meddling]], a productivity-halting lawsuit trying to stop them from moving to Geffen, and [[Development Hell|general band procrastination]] (moving to Wales to record did ''not'' help). The album was finally released in 1994, over five years after their debut album. The album completely failed to live up to its hype and despite lead single "Love Spreads" becoming a genuine hit, the album received middling reviews and disappeared from the charts quickly. So were the band: they split up two years later, after a series of badly-reviewed live appearances and hiring [[Replacement Scrappy|Replacement Scrappies]] after their guitarist and drummer left.
** The Knack followed up their hit album ''Get the Knack'' and #1 hit single "My Sharona" with ''...But the Little Girls Understand''. The album was a complete dud commercially and critically, and despite releasing a couple more albums before they broke up, those releases never troubled the pop charts and were released with almost no fanfare.
* The pioneering [[New Wave (Music)|New Wave]] label Factory Records was taken down by ''Yes Please!'', the disastrous 1992 album by Happy Mondays which went several times overbudget and has its artists spending more time doing crack (which they decided was more addicting than heroin, an addiction which they had relocated to Barbados to kick -- there was no heroin on the island, but plenty of crack) than recording any material (the first demos sent to the company didn't even have vocals since the artists forgot to write any). The failure of the album also took down Happy Mondays, who wouldn't record another album until 2007.
* Despite only finishing as runner-up in ''[[The X Factor]]'' UK 2005, Andy Abraham initially had a very promising career, and his first two albums enjoyed strong sales. Unfortunately, his future was destroyed virtually overnight by his disastrous failure and last-place finish in the 2008 [[Eurovision Song Contest]]. Aside from the single release of his Eurovision song (which flopped so badly it didn't even get into the charts), Abraham hasn't released a single album since.
 
 
== Tabletop Games ==
* While not a creator, distributor Upper Deck Entertainment got hit hard during the latter part of the ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX|GX]]'' era of the ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh Card Game]]'' TCG due to their own [[Executive Meddling]]; a series of unpopular reshuffling of set cards (including the dismantling of two highly anticipated structure decks to release their new cards as difficult-to-get Secret Rares in the main sets), creation of poorly-received TCG-only cards, and ultimately the publishing of fake cards for third-party distribution ultimately forced [[Konami]] to pull their contract with UDE and wrangle the game away from them through a legal shitstorm. Even more damning, this incident has apparently caused [[Blizzard Entertainment]] to pull ''their'' contract with UDE for the distribution of the ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' TCG, going so far as to make an entirely new branch specifically for distributing it themselves. No word yet on how this will impact UDE's baseball and hockey card sales, but it's likely that that's going to be the only thing that'll save them from bankruptcy. To make things even more troubling, [http://www.nctimes.com/business/article_526a005b-9676-57f8-b5d9-4eb14f2c43d0.html there's a corporate family civil war brewing as a direct result of the aforementioned Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG scandal.]
 
 
== Video Games ==
* ''[[Daikatana (Video Game)|Daikatana]]'' didn't make anyone [[John Romero]]'s bitch as he wanted to; it made Romero its own bitch and took his fame and career down with it.
** Some would say it also made Ion Storm its bitch, but the RTS ''Dominion: Storm Over Gift 3'' is perhaps the bigger culprit. Not only was it an huge flop on its own, but the [[Troubled Production|internal squabbling its development caused at Ion Storm]] was partially responsible for turning ''Daikatana'' into what it is, mostly thanks to how Ion Storm wanted to get the game out of the door as soon as possible so they could have some more cash for ''Daikatana''.
** That said, after ''Daikatana'', Romero floundered for awhile before coming back with a social games company that has seen moderate success and a much more older, wiser, and mature Romero. It doesn't hurt that he's also dating Brenda Braithwarthe, a prominent "serious games" creator and advocate.
* As for some other [[Id Software]] employees, American McGee, who started out as a level designer for [[Doom]] and [[Quake]], hit it off big-time with ''[[American McGee's Alice (Video Game)|American McGee's Alice]]'', followed it up with ''[[Scrapland]]''... and then fell ''hard'' with ''[[Bad Day LA]]'', a [[Anvilicious|ham-handed attempt]] at [[Strawman Political|political satire]] disguised as a videogame. Even after ''[[American McgeesMcGee's Grimm (Video Game)|Grimm]]'', McGee has never really recovered, and plans for ''American McGee's [[Land of Oz (Literature)|Oz]]'' never really took off. Fortunately, ''[[Alice: Madness Returns]]'' did eventually get released in 2011, so a comeback is likely.
* The twin flops of ''BMX XXX'' and ''[[Turok (Video Gameseries)|Turok]] Evolution'' killed [[Acclaim (Creator)|Acclaim]]. The former in particular not only garnered a lot of negative controversy due to its attempt at using [[Sex Sells|sexual content to sell copies]], but it caused Dave Mirra to sue them because he didn't want his name associated with it (it was originally an installment in the ''Dave Mirra BMX'' series). Acclaim was later revived, albeit on a smaller scale and [[In Name Only]].
* ''[[Duke Nukem Forever (Video Game)|Duke Nukem Forever]]'' killed 3D Realms and destroyed George Broussard's reputation without even being made... or more accurately, ''by'' [[Vaporware|not being made]]. And just to twist the knife, after 3D Realms imploded, the game was handed to Gearbox Software by [[Take Two Interactive|2K Games]], who [[Saved From Development Hell|proceeded to do more towards actually completing the game]] in one year than Broussard and 3D Realms did in twelve. According to [[Word of God]], the game was already pretty much finished. Perfectionism and the Take-Two lawsuit kept it from coming out. Gearbox just basically put the finishing touches.
** And to further twist the knife, since Gearbox simply needed to get it out and not put any work into it, Gearbox basically spent a marginal amount of money for a game (meaning very quickly hitting a break even point) and IP with which they can now do whatever they want.
* ''[[Haze]]'' and ''[[Lair]]'' were two high-profile [[Play Station 3]] flops which bankrupted their respective developers, Free Radical and Factor 5.
Line 113:
** Said rumour turned out to be true and ''[[Mechwarrior]] Online'' was born. However, unexpectedly, it's coming out in a year where no less than four other mech games are to be launched, at least one of which is a free to play MMO as well...
* The [[Virtual Boy]] did this to [[Gunpei Yokoi]], whose failure resulted into him being [[Kicked Upstairs]] and resigning from [[Nintendo]] before his death.
* Poor sales of both the ''[[Terminator]] Salvation'' [[The Problem Withwith Licensed Games|tie-in game]] and ''[[Bionic Commando (Video Game)|Bionic Commando]] 2009'' led to [[Square Enix]] [http://kotaku.com/5806511/bankrupted-studio-says-square%20enix-demanded-code-by-fax-didnt-recognize-ffxii-screenshots doing what can only be described as death-by-trolling] on GRIN's ''[[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XII]]'' spin-off project ''Fortress'', killing the entire company.
* After the abysmal flop of ''[[Tomb Raider]]: The Angel of Darkness'', [[You Have Failed Me|Core Design couldn't do any more]] ''[[Tomb Raider]]'' games and struggled with a few mediocre handheld games before being sold off to Rebellion and rebranded as "Rebellion Derby". They were promptly taken down after the release of the critically-savaged ''[[Rogue Warrior]]''.
* The piss-poor ''[[Empire Earth]] 3'' led to not only [[Franchise Killer|the death of the franchise]], but also Mad Doc Studios.
* Losses from critically-panned ''[[APB: All Points Bulletin (Video Game)|All Points Bulletin]]'' seem to have killed ''[[Crackdown]]'' developer Realtime Worlds. They sank a lot of money in the [[Development Hell|long development phase]] but in the end, they had to release the game in hope to recoup the losses. Unfortunately, [[Obvious Beta|it was still in a messy state]] and rather accelerated their downfall -- the servers were shut down ''less than ten weeks after the launch'', [[Medal of Dishonor|a sad new record for an MMO]].
* ''[[Tomba]]'' and its sequel ''Tomba 2: The Evil Swine Return'' performed well enough to develop a cult following, but they sold so poorly that their developer, Whoopee Camp, never made another game.
* [[Atari]] struggled for years in the wake of [[The Great Video Game Crash of 1983]], having released no less than three disastrous game systems in a row with the 5200, the 7800, and the handheld Lynx, but it was the [[Atari Jaguar]] that finally did them in. The combination of an incredibly difficult-to-develop-for architecture, shoddy build quality, an archaic controller design, and the inertia enjoyed by [[Nintendo]] and [[Sega]] doomed the Jaguar to ultimate failure, and it turned out to be the straw that finally broke Atari's back. You may still see the Atari name today, but that's [[In Name Only|just for marketing purposes]] -- Atari Corporation died with the Jaguar, and the name was bought by French publisher Infogrames as part of a push into the worldwide market.
* The failure of ''[[Tabula Rasa]]'' pretty much ended the video game career of Richard Garriott, or, at the very least, robbed him of the "Lord British" mystique. On the other hand, the $28 million dollars he received in his lawsuit from NC Soft, the profits he's still making from ''[[City of Heroes]]'', and the fact that ''Tabula Rasa'' allowed him to take a flight to the Space Station probably takes the sting out of it.
* After a steady string of hits with its ''Project Gotham Racing'' series, the disappointing sales figures of ''[[Blur (Videovideo Gamegame)|Blur]]'' killed Bizarre Creations outright.
* [[Executive Meddling]] from Disney forced the closure of Black Rock Studios despite the positive reception of ''[[Video Game/Split Second|Split Second]]''.
* The Amiga CD32 was planned for American release by Commodore, but a patent dispute got in the way, and the company eventually filed for bankruptcy several months later, in part due to the lost (by law) sales.
Line 135:
* After the failure of the ''[[Ren and Stimpy]] Adult Party Cartoon'', it is unlikely [[John Kricfalusi]] will be able to sell another show... not that it's stopped him from trying.
** Several of his smaller animation projects have enjoyed fairly high-profile success, such as a [[Couch Gag]] for ''[[The Simpsons]]'' in which the family is shown in John K.'s bizarre style.
* The [[wikipedia:2007 Boston bomb scare|Boston Bomb Scare]]; when some Boston police thought that guerilla marketing LEDs for the ''[[Aqua Teen Hunger Force (Animation)|Aqua Teen Hunger Force]]'' movie were bombs, then-current [[Cartoon Network]] head Jim Samples was forced to step down. Observers have pointed at this incident as arguably the cause of the [[Network Decay]] of Cartoon Network, considering that his replacement Stuart Snyder was the main champion of the increase of live-action sitcoms and reality shows on the channel.
 
 
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/879024"