5 Movies That Had ‘Ghost Directors’

 A director is usually considered the ultimate authority on a film set. While studio executives may intervene and stars might flex their influence, it’s ultimately up to the director to shape a film’s aesthetic and keep a cast and crew of hundreds (or thousands) working toward a cohesive vision.

But that authority can sometimes be unseated. Take a look at five movies that had another director shooting scenes or otherwise working without an onscreen credit, a sometimes-contentious, sometimes-intentional process known as “ghost direction.”

1. Poltergeist (1982)
2. Tombstone (1993)
3. The Time Machine (2002)
4. The Swimmer (1968)
5. Piranha II: The Spawning (1981)

Poltergeist (1982)

The credits for the 1982 horror film Poltergeist name the late Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) as the director. But cinephiles have long argued about how much influence Hooper had on set when producer Steven Spielberg was present. While Hooper has disputed ceding any control, saying Spielberg’s filming of second-unit footage was blown out of proportion, several cast and crew members have described the E.T. director as being heavily involved on set.

“{Spielberg} was taking more of a hands-on approach,” star Craig T. Nelson told Vanity Fair in 2022. “But it was always from a very creative collaboration. There was no tension on the set in that regard. It was determining how you were going to shoot things that had never been done before.”

JoBeth Williams concurred. “Tobe was not as experienced as Steven was,” she said. “He very much listened to Steven’s ideas about things, because it was Steven’s movie, really. And I’m sure there were times when it drove Tobe crazy to have Steven so actively involved, but he never let on. They were both kind of there on the set. Tobe would give direction, sometimes Steven would add to that or give other direction, but I think it’s fair to say that it was sort of a combo of the two of them, because certainly Steven was actively involved.”

Speaking with the Los Angeles Times in 1985, Hooper didn’t believe there was much to discuss. “I wasn’t even aware of any ‘controversy’ until I read about it,” he said. “The picture was run like any other one. I had an extremely talented producer, I was doing my job as director and we were good friends who got along extremely well. I think we both complemented one another in our thinking and our style as filmmakers and storytellers.”

In an open letter to Hooper published in the trade paper The Hollywood Reporter before the film’s release, Spielberg thanked Hooper for a “unique, creative relationship” and said “the press has misunderstood” their collaboration. According to the Los Angeles Times, Spielberg did so at the request of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), which wanted to protect Hooper’s directorial credit.

Tombstone (1993)

One of two Wyatt Earp features to hit screens in the early 1990s—the other was Kevin Costner’s Wyatt Earp—Tombstone stars Kurt Russell as the myth-laden lawman. But in Russell’s telling, he had a lot more to do with the movie than acting.

The film’s original director, Kevin Jarre, was let go after filming began, and George Cosmatos, who had previously helmed Cobra, stepped in. Russell had been deeply involved with the movie’s pre-production, and he took on a larger role when Cosmatos came on board.

“They wanted me to take over the movie,” Russell told True West magazine in 2006. “I said, ‘I’ll do it, but I don’t want to put my name on it. I don’t want to be the guy’ … I said to George {Cosmatos}, ‘I’m going to give you a shot list every night, and that’s what’s going to be.’ I’d go to George’s room, give him the shot list for the next day, that was the deal. ‘George, I don’t want any arguments. This is what it is. This is what the job is.’ ” Russell added that he told Cosmatos he wouldn’t detail the working arrangement unless Cosmatos passed, which happened the year prior to Russell’s interview in 2005.

It's unclear how much influence Russell had. One Tombstone actor, Michael Biehn, refuted he was in total control.  “{Russell} didn’t direct it,” Biehn said in 2024. “It was directed by committee. Everybody had a hand in it.”

The Time Machine (2002)

Guy Pearce is the hero of the classic H.G. Wells novel about a time traveler who encounters a far-flung future (and malevolent Morlocks). Director Simon Wells (great-grandson of the novelist) shot roughly three-quarters of the movie over several months. With 18 days to go, Wells dropped out due to exhaustion and was replaced by Gore Verbinski (The Ring, Pirates of the Caribbean). Wells, however, retained sole directing credit on the film.

“When you burn the candle at both ends,” Wells told Entertainment Weekly in 2001, “you reach a certain point where there’s no candle left.”

Speaking to the Kingdom of Dreams podcast in 2024, Wells said that Verbinski had just finished The Mexican for DreamWorks executives and producers Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald. Because that film hadn’t done well, he wanted to assist on The Time Machine, another DreamWorks production, when Wells needed to step away.

“He basically offered to step in and do this uncredited because he felt he owed Walter and Laurie,” Wells said. “So there’s a chunk, probably about a quarter to a third of the end of the movie which is Gore Verbinski’s work. He worked hard on following the style and approach that had been used at the beginning of the film.”

The Swimmer (1968)

Adapted from a John Cheever short story of the same name, The Swimmer is a surreal look at the life of a middle-aged man (Burt Lancaster) who finds both solace and conflict while jumping into a series of private pools on his way home. The movie is credited to director Frank Perry, whose wife, Eleanor, penned the script. But portions were shot by Sydney Pollack, who went on to a storied career (Tootsie, Out of Africa). Early reports cited Perry’s “unavailability,” but Perry later stated it was because Lancaster had seen to it Perry was fired.

“It was very tough and very painful,” Perry, who acknowledged he “made a lot of mistakes on” the film, said in 1972. “But I have no acrimony about it. Burt was really very sweet, but he had more power than I contractually. He had the right to fire me, and he did.”

Piranha II: The Spawning (1981)

This low-budget sequel to the successful Piranha was directed mostly by Ovidio Assonitis, an Italian filmmaker who was also responsible for the similar Jaws-esque Tentacles (1977). But Assonitis, who was also the film’s producer, originally hired a young director to helm the film. When the director fell behind schedule after just a few days, Assonitis fired him and took over, though he didn’t take the directing credit. Assonitis would later state he allowed the novice to remain on the film directing water sequences while Assonitis handled most of the other dialogue-based scenes.

Assonitis may not have felt the director held much promise, but he landed on his feet. The man he fired was James Cameron.

“Technically, I have a credit as the director on that film,” Cameron said in 1991. “However, I was replaced after two-and-a-half weeks by the Italian producer. He just fired me and took over, which is what he wanted to do when he hired me. It wasn’t until much later that I even figured out what had happened. It was like, ‘Oh, man, I thought I was doing a good job.’ But when I saw what they were cutting together, it was horrible. And then the producer wouldn't take my name off the picture because {contractually} they couldn’t deliver it with an Italian name. So they left me on, no matter what I did … I did some directing on the film, but I don’t feel it was my first movie.”

Instead, Cameron typically names The Terminator (1984) as his directorial debut.

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