A friend not too long ago was baffled by the idea that "him from Swingers" was directing these huge movies (Iron Man, Jungle Book, now this). But aye, as per St_Eddie's post, studios are currently more interested in hiring gullible and malleable cogs to "direct" these big-budget productions - if they already have a bit of a profile for being "one of Monica's least popular romantic interests", all the better. At the very least they can hold their own on the press circuit.
Recently, they've gone more the route of using "indie" directors whose "indie" films have essentially been desperate pleas to gain entry to and work within the major studio system (Colin Trevorrow, J. A. Bayona, Gareth Edwards etc.)
Maybe the definition of "director" is changing, though. Maybe rather than it referring to the executor of a singular vision, it's now more akin to being a floor manager and PR face for a vision concocted by countless different people and board-rooms over countless years. This is the strategy that allows you to churn out dreadful films which nobody really likes and still break box-office records because it's meticulously designed for nothing other than to get people to buy tickets for it.
Increasingly, I'm suspecting a trend of studios playing into how shite their films are through showcasing obviously unfinished work in early trailers and promotional images (see Jurassic World, Aladdin, Sonic etc.), deliberately garnering negative attention in order to drum up interest in an otherwise dull final product. Honestly, these are barely even films now, they're simply aggregators of "what works".
This Lion King remake looks absolutely shit. I guarantee you everyone working on it knew that (except the actors, perhaps). Technologically impressive, but otherwise inane and pointless and almost comical. Everyone still gets paid.
