What’s a Big-Budget Filmmaker Without the Budget?

It doesn’t matter what a filmmaker’s résumé looks like: If they string together enough flops, they’re liable to land in “director jail,” the dreaded vocational abyss in which studios no longer trust them with projects. (Some filmmakers always seem to escape director jail, no matter how many times their movies bomb; what’s the secret, Robert Zemeckis?) While it’s possible to spring free from director jail, such an endeavor typically requires making the most of smaller budgets, as M. Night Shyamalan did with The Visit and Split. It’s an intriguing predicament, then, when a director accustomed to working with vast resources finds themselves on the outs.