Everyone is awkward and inexperienced at the beginning of their career. No matter if we’re talking about a plumber or a cook, a car mechanic, or a professional gambler, the learning years are the same. Plumbers start by handing tools to their old and experienced mentor, cooks start by cleaning potatoes and carrots in the kitchen, and professional gamblers start by playing games at https://www.casinoaus.com/real-money-casinos/ before diving into the shark-filled waters of the real thing.
Directors also try their hands - and fail - a few times before they can finally make their “magnum opus” that will put their names in the annals of movie history. No director becomes perfect at their first try - sometimes, the early works of moviemakers are painfully bad, other times, they bear the unmissable marks of low budgets and a lack of experience. Some of the top directors of our time have started their careers with movies that are - for lack of a better word - B.
Peter Jackson
Peter Jackson has started his career as a quirky filmmaker from New Zealand. His first movies were so-called “splatter” features, heavy on blood and violence - perhaps one of the most memorable of them was “Braindead”, where a Sumatran rat-monkey bites a domineering mother in Wellington, bringing on a zombie apocalypse - that’s abruptly ended by a lawnmower in the most “splatter” fashion imaginable. By the way, the movie won quite a few awards and has since developed a cult following.
Jackson transitioned to Hollywood in the mid-1990s, giving us “The Frighteners” (a horror-comedy starring Michael J. Fox) and his own take on King Kong. Then, he won the rights to adapt J. R. R. Tolkien’s immortal fantasy epic “The Lord of the Rings” to the big screen… and the rest, as they say, is history.
Robert Rodriguez
Robert Rodriguez is the textbook example of a “rebel” filmmaker. After some early success with his independent (short) films, he shot his first feature film “El Mariachi” on a budget of $7,000, using the locals in Ciudad Acuña (his filming location) as extras, and raising most of the money needed to complete his film by participating in (multiple) drug trials. The movie was a surprise hit, earning him not just recognition but mainstream success as well. Since then, he completed his “Mexico” trilogy, directed several cult classics like “From Dusk Till Dawn”, “Sin City”, the “Spy Kids” series, and Machete, a 2010 homage to the B movies of times past that was based on a fake trailer he made for “Grindhouse”.
Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro has multiple Academy Award nominations - and a couple of wins - under his belt. His first feature film was a critically acclaimed independent horror movie called “Cronos” which put him on the map of filmmaking. His second feature film was, in turn, “Mimic”, a horror flick that was mediocre at best, about a genetically engineered cockroach species that grows to terrorize Manhattan. The movie received two direct-to-video sequels that del Toro had nothing to do with.
After Mimic, in turn, del Toro returned to serious filmmaking. He directed Blade II (the highest-grossing entry in the series) and Hellboy, Pacific Rim, and Crimson Peak, almost won an Oscar for Pan’s Labyrinth and won two for The Shape of Water.
James Cameron
It may be hard to imagine that James Cameron, the man behind some of the highest-grossing movies of all time, started his career making B-movies. But he did - and the movie was one of the worst creature features ever created: Piranha II: The Spawning. Back in 1982, he worked as a special effects director for the movie when the director left the project, giving him the opportunity to take over. The only good thing to come out of his misadventure - that involved power struggles with the producer and a fever - was a dream that eventually inspired him to write The Terminator.
Since then, he made movies loved by the critics and the audiences, won a total of 21 Academy Awards, and has become one of the most recognized filmmakers of our time.
David Fincher
Finally, let us mention a director who gave up a successful career making music videos to transition to the big screen. His transition was not without its issues: his first feature film was one of the most controversial ones at the time.
Alien 3 was plagued with problems from the beginning - including half a dozen scripts, and several directors changed. It was ultimately made after a lot of struggle - and it came out divisive, to say the least. Fincher has since disowned the movie, blaming interference from the studio and impossible deadlines. Considering what movies he has made since, we tend to believe him.
Fincher’s second feature film - the neo-noir crime thriller “Se7en” pushed the director into the “cult” category instantly.