How much Freedom Should Directors Have?

This Question has been bothering me for some time Now.

In movies How much Freedom Should a Director Have In changing movies?

Directors can direct however they want to direct, as long as it's in line with their contracts/whatever the producers want them to do. It works the same with writers, actors, etc.

@rulerofthisuniverse:

so if they want they could just change everything right? doesn't sound like a good deal to me.

Directors are free to direct their movie however they see fit, but ultimately they answer to their producers who can either reign in the director's power or just let him do his thing. That being said, directors should have some obligation to their source material when making a movie/tv show based on a novel, comic, play, etc. Generally well-done productions will chose a director who knows the source material for projects like this, and they usually like to keep the production close to the source material anyway because every change they make risks losing some of their original fan base. Basically what this all boils down to is: how well is the production likely to sell. That's what determines which movies are made, how they're made, projected budgets available, and how the budget is split up (more writers for better scripting/plot, or more special effects because you don't need plot to appeal to pre-teens, just explosions.)

I know that system sucks, but welcome to Hollywood.

Your question is a little confusing. Are you asking how much power a director should have over a movie in general? Or are you asking how much a movie can veer away from the source material?

To the first question. Some directors can have full power and make a very good product, most do not. Seems like in most cases when a director gets more power and influence and thus less oversight from producers/studio, they get annoyingly self-indulgent. They start making movies for themselves and not for the audience and stop listening or even allowing critizism of their work. The two obvious directors with this problem are Tim Burton and George Lucas. Burton used to make great movies when he was young and hungry, now he makes crap that seems to entertain just him. The original Star Wars was a colaborative effort, Lucas had people willing to tell him some of his ideas were crap and we got a stronger film for it, when he was making the prequels, no one told him how f--king aweful most of his ideas were and we got that.

As for the latter, I'm of the mind that a movie should stick close to the source material, especially for comic movies. During the early 2000's, a slew of comic movies were coming out that were not faithful at all to the comics they originated from and were crap; movies like Catwoman and Fantasic Four. If the character has been working for decades in the printed form, then there must be something that works about it. I can accept small changes like were done in MoS, but still preserve the heart of the character.

Though there are times when a movie strays from the source material and still produces something good. Blade Runner is my favourite movie and I really like the book that it is loosely based on, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The movie and the book are two very different stories, but surprisingly both work very well. So, like everything, there are exceptions to the rule.

As long as they stay true to the core of the character I think a Director should have as much freedom as he needs to make a good movie.

But it should also be noted that sticking closely to the source material doesn't always make a good movie either. Look at the Green Lantern movie: stuck to source fairly well, pulled in a lot of the GL comic fans, most of them left disappointed.

All that they desire, in my opinion.

@rdclip: good argument though i didn't think mos was good.

They should not be bound by comic books.

they should. otherwise they would piss of a lot of Fans.

@freak_spawn: Wait, so what you're specifically asking is how much directors of COMIC BOOK movies can alter the source material? Because your title and posts didn't communicate that at all.... It took ten posts to decipher this.

I feel the writers and directors of comic book movies should have the choice to alter the characters and motivations as they see fit. But they should always weigh the risks in doing so. The two Tim Burton Batman movies are very different from the accepted vision of Batman (Burton's Batman has no problem with killing dudes, a young Joker killed the Waynes) but are entertaining movies.

Then there's The Spirit. I laughed a lot and had fun with The Spirit, but it had NOTHING to do with Will Eisner's cast of characters and tone. Frank Miller just seemed to be pissing on his friend's grave with that one.

@freak_spawn: If it was written in the script that way, they really wanted to, and their producers let them, yeah, they totally could.

@freak_spawn:

I hear you man, I do, but I look at it this way. Comics stretch the imagination waaaay more that movies can. Movies play to a much broader audience. Movie goers know of the characters, but not the way comic book readers do. To have Supes, MM and WW lasso the earth and tug it around would likely turn off movie goers as way to unrealistic.

Director has some power. They can have the movie look anyway they want but it has to fit with what the producers want. The producers have all the powers, thats why majority of the directors in cbm are producers so they have control over what happens.