Movie directing is typically depicted as glamorous work, despite the issues Neil Marshall may have encountered during the production of the Hellboy reboot.

Though Hollywood is rife with stories about what happens when relations between directors and studios (or casts) don’t quite go as planned.

For instance, Stanley Donen originally only intended to produce 1999’s Saturn 3 but instead directed the sci-fi horror feature due to the original director, John Barry, being released from the production (an experience that effected him so profoundly that it allegedly contributed to his death years later).

Or Josh Trank’s experience directing 2015’s Fantastic Four, which not only lost 20th Century Fox somewhere in the ballpark of $100 million but virtually tanked Trank’s career (I had read a few years ago that he was working on a movie with Tom Hardy, but I’ve seen no hint of it).

Or more recently, Zach Snyder being released as the architect of the DCEU (DC Cinematic Universe) due to the suicide of his daughter (and while that was undoubtedly a factor, what is likelier closer to the truth were the diminishing returns and divisive nature of movies like Man Of Steel, Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice and Justice League).

So, for productions both large and small, occasionally going off the rails for various reasons is hardly unusual, though what what went on with Neil Marshall’s Hellboy (2019) reboot is in a way different–and not only because it seems so petty–but because (unlike in the case of Barry and Trank) he’s hardly a newbie, which makes it a bit more unusual.