Steven Spielberg: he could have directed Spider-Man, and not just one movie, but the whole saga even. And it wasn't even the most succesful of the scripts that the director of E.T. or Indiana Jones passed upon. Shocking or not, Spielberg didn't want to get involved in the huge Harry Potter series of movies, although he was sure is was going to be a hit. A huge hit. But for a director who had made several blockbusters over the years it wasn't really a loss. Although one could only wonder how he would have directed one of the entries of the Harry Potter saga. Guillermo del Torro: one of those easily recognisable directors, but also a perfectionist and difficult person to work with, he was one of the very few movie makers who had the chance of making the seventh part of the Star Wars series. Many other directors would have given everything for such an opportunity, but Guillermo del Torro rejected the offer. And also the chance of ever directing anything even remotely related to the Star Wars phenomenon.
Alfred Hitchcock: The Exorcist (what did Friedkin do with that one), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane, Wait Until Dark, Rosemary's Baby and the list could go on and on. And only a director such as Hitchcock could have rejected all these scripts without not only losing money or popularity, but even making the writers feeling proud for even having had this chance. How ever small it was. Maybe some of these stories were not to his liking, maybe Hitchcock (ever the perfectionist) didn't have the time, maybe he simply wanted to come back to them writer. But considering his huge influence those stories could have had a special phrase on the cover: "Scripts rejected by Hitchcock".
Martin Scorsese: what would Schindler's List would have been if it had been directed by Scorsese? More violent? More intense? Better that the one we know today? Who knows, for Scorsese stayed away from this difficult project.
John Carpenter: a difficult movie maker, a strange one, some have called him a genius or at least an influential and strongly original one. Even if he had more box-office failures than many other famous directors, he had the strenght and the resiliance to keep on doing movies and is nowadays preparing a triumphant return. And over time he rejected Top Gun or Fatal Attraction, so he doesn't seem to interested into earning the big bucks. Only in making the kind of movies he likes and truly believes in.
Photo: wikipedia.org
