5 Great Careers Destroyed By The Post-Oscar Curse

5 Francis Ford Coppola

From 1972-1982, Francis Ford Coppola was not only at the top of his game, he was at the top of anyone's game. Ever. Between The Godfather, The Godfather, Part II and Apocalypse Now, Coppola's films had won so many Oscars that he could smelt them all down to make the most critically acclaimed suit of armor in all the land.

After the rigors of Apocalypse Now, one would think that Coppola would've taken a break--after all, this was the film that caused him to famously quip, "We had access to too much money, too much equipment and, little by little, we went insane."

Instead, Coppola went to Vegas--or at least a $26 million movie version of it--and bet the farm on "Technicolor weird-ass musical."

Coppola's gamble was called One from the Heart, a surrealist Las Vegas love story fueled by the music of Tom Waits. Instead of filming on location, Coppola built replicas of Vegas on sound stages. The set shot One from the Heart's original $2 million budget into the stratosphere, leaving Coppola to pick up a more than $20 million tab when the film earned only $600,000. And to add insult to injury, the film got terrible reviews.

One from the Heart left Coppola on the verge on bankruptcy from the late 80s to early 90s. To keep ahead of his creditors, Coppola directed films he would've otherwise passed up, including The Godfather, Part III and the "Robin Williams as a giant 10-year old" flick, Jack.

That's right, One from the Heart was responsible for freaking Jack.

Motherfucker.

Now let's make it extra clear: Even if the man just filmed himself pooping on a glass coffee table every year after 1982, Coppola would still go down as one of the most important filmmakers ever. But still, you have to wonder what crucial part of himself he lost after Apocalypse Now. In the last 27 years, the most memorable thing he's directed was that Michael Jackson ride at Disney World. And, hey, we're not complaining. Captain EO fucking ruled.

If The Godfather, Part III had been three hours of that, he'd have a few more gold statues on his mantle right now.

4 John Boorman

In 1972, English director John Boorman oversaw the backwoods thriller Deliverance. Audiences delighted in the film's dueling banjos, the handsomely hirsute duo of Burt Reynolds and Jon Voight and perhaps the most celebrated anal rape scene in cinema history.

The above is "aesthetically significant," according to the Library of Congress.

The film's Southern-fried sodomy went over surprisingly well with the stodgy Academy, and Boorman rode Ned Beatty's bare bottom to a Best Picture and a Best Directing nod.

High off his newfound critical clout, Boorman next made his 1974 mind-fuck vanity project Zardoz, which starred Sean Connery traipsing around a post-apocalyptic wasteland in a loincloth and suspenders.

That wasn't a euphemism. This is what the movie is about.

Comparing Deliverance to Zardoz is like comparing apples to oranges that have been hollowed out and turned into bongs. A critic would have to, more or less, invent a new language to describe its plot, so we're just going the film's preview speak for itself:

Yes, that was a huge floating head saying, "The gun is good" and puking rifles to a crowd of diapered men on horseback. Once you bought your ticket, you got to hear the head finish the sentence ("... The penis is evil.")

The product of a grossly negligent studio system (and what must have been an entire roll of Bounty soaked with lysergic acid), Zardoz tells the tale of a sexual dystopia, topless psychics and immortals who can't achieve erections.

Sean Connery's character, the "brutal exterminator" Zed, is the hero of the piece precisely because he can get a boner. Again, 100 percent serious here.

Boorman's later films never received the praise of Deliverance, and while we can't pin all of his troubles on Zardoz, you can't put Sean Connery in a wedding dress and expect much good to come of it.

Or can you?

3 William Friedkin

After winning Best Director for The French Connection and being nominated for The Exorcist, William Friedkin tried for a hat-trick with 1977's Sorcerer. According to Friedkin, the movie's sorcerer was "an evil wizard and in this case the evil wizard is fate." Evil wizard? Dungeons & Dragons fans everywhere were ready to line up, preferably in costume.

But, in a blatant case of false advertising, Sorcerer contained no sorcerers. The movie followed four criminals hired to deliver nitroglycerin to a South American oil rig, with the assistance of no magic at all.

Karma's backlash against the film was brutal. A hurricane decimated the set. Spooked villagers blamed the filmmakers for causing a historic drought and threatened to detonate a $1 million prop bridge. Friedkin caught malaria and lost 50 pounds. The $15 million budget soon ballooned to $21 million.

If fate truly is an evil wizard, as Friedkin believed, then that wily wizard did everything in his power to fuck up the production of Sorcerer.

A poster for Sorcerer, inadvertently capturing a villager trying to blow up the set.

Friedkin's troubles continued upon the film's US release. Audiences expecting mystical weirdness a la The Exorcist walked out of theaters. This prompted ads warning that Sorcerer was "NOT A FILM ABOUT THE SUPERNATURAL." Audiences confused by subtitles in the opening scenes also walked out. This prompted lobby placards declaring "SORCERER IS AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE FILM."

Oh, and a little film called Star Wars opened a month earlier. This prompted no one to see Sorcerer.

Despite good reviews, the film recouped only $9 million and severely damaged Friedkin's status as an A-List director. None of his later films proved as memorable as his Oscar-nominated work, unless you count Al Pacino's gay S&M thriller Cruising. Which we do.

2 Michael Cimino

Michael Cimino's Deer Hunter cleaned house at the 1978 Academy Awards. The film scored Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Supporting Actor for, believe it or not, Christopher Walken. After winning this assload of adulation, Cimino's next step was to blow up a horse onscreen.

Uh, not quite...

Cimino's follow-up, the Western epic Heaven's Gate, infuriated animals' rights groups so much that the film is widely credited as the catalyst for the "NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED" disclaimer at the end of movies. But the dynamited horse wasn't the most famous thing to die on the set of Heaven's Gate. That honor goes to Cimino's career.

Cimino's conduct on set wasn't directorial, it was dictatorial. He blew $1.2 million rebuilding a set because he thought the houses looked to close together. Set construction then spewed a toxic slick onto a lake in Glacier National Park.

Cimino's 5.5 hour-long cut of Heaven's Gate purportedly had a battle scene as long as a normal movie, and he assigned an armed guard outside of the editing room to deter meddling United Artists execs.

And that guard was Christopher Walken.

In the end, Heaven's Gate bankrupted United Artists, and Cimino was blackballed in Tinseltown for years. Perhaps the most depressing part of Heaven's Gate is its legacy--despite being one of the biggest bombs in Hollywood history, no one remembers the film anymore. A cult of comet-loving castrati totally stole its thunder.

1 David Lynch

It's unfair to say David Lynch has pissed away his career. After all, he's responsible for the neo-noir classic Mulholland Drive and the "Dennis Hopper high on poppers" flick Blue Velvet. But did you know there was once a crazy time when Lynch directed blockbusters? That wild time, dear readers, was 1984.

In 1980, Lynch's The Elephant Man was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Afterwards, Lynch had his pick of plush projects. George Lucas offered him Return of the Jedi, but Lynch instead chose an adaptation of Frank Herbert's best-selling sci-fi novel Dune.

Lynch had no idea what Dune was about at the time, which is generally not recommended when signing on to direct a $40 million space opera. Still, Dune had the pedigree of an 80s smash: a diehard fan base, a soundtrack by Toto and Sting in a shiny wingtip bikini.

Cruising, Part II: Dune.

Unfortunately for Lynch, Dune had a reputation for being unfilmable ("Forget it, guys, you'll just wind up with Sting in a thong or something"). The film had been in development hell for 13 years (for example, a previous producer had cast Salvador Dali at the cost of $100,000 an hour).

Lynch suffered the same fate. Dune's financiers were pissed that the final cut was three hours long. Lynch was pissed that the studio pressured him to smush Herbert's 400+ page epic into a two-hour popcorn movie. Theaters were pissed that they had to hand out pamphlets explaining the film's futuristic vocabulary, and audiences were pissed that they had to read.

"I go to the movies to escape literacy!"

In the end, Dune was critically crucified, a commercial catastrophe and, more or less, disowned by Lynch, who credited himself as the infamous Hollywood pseudonym "Alan Smithee" on certain editions of the film.

Nowadays, Lynch makes his films with an eye towards the art house set. Who can blame the guy? He's doing what he wants these days, and so maybe this one has a happy ending.

For more zaniness from Hollywood, check out The 7 Most Terrifying Celebrity Transformations and The Top 10 Secret Celebrity Scientologists.

Or, visit Cracked.com's Top Picks to see how crazy DOB went after winning his Web award.