10 times directors (tried to) explain their unpopular movies

Speaking to Variety: "I was the problem with Batman & Robin. I did my job. But I never got my ass in the seat right. I just hope whenever I see a list of the worst movies ever made, we’re not on it. I didn’t do a good job. George did. Chris [O’Donnell] did. Uma [Thurman] is brilliant in it. Arnold is Arnold".

Speaking to HitFix: "The reality is the studio wanted to make the movie and I had a deal with them and I felt like they had given me a chance to make the first one, so I felt obliged, almost, to do that as well. But the moment Keanu wasn't going to be in the movie, I started getting very worried. It should have been a much smaller concept. There was also no chemistry between the two leads. That was clear. There's a lot of movies made that should never have been made, or at least for a much lower budget, that's for sure. And that was maybe the mistake. But it still has good scenes. It's not a total loss."

Speaking to The Age: "Alexander was a winner... pity the film wasn't. Alexander never lost a battle in his life. And I have let him down. He was a fighter, the sort of man who would have gone after Osama Bin Laden and never given up. But I didn't see this coming, this utter trashing of the movie. I should have. The criticism has been ball-breaking. I was devastated, Colin Farrell was devastated. The audiences, they didn't know the story, and they were confused by it. I did that wrong. That was my fault."

Speaking to Empire: "They really gave me a tremendous amount of control on the first two films, actually. But then there were different opinions on the third film and I didn't really have creative control, so to speak."

Speaking to The Huffington Post: "Well, I always thought it was a really good movie! I always thought I probably started it wrong. I should have said something like ‘Once upon a time.’ Because it was just like a modern-day fairy tale - it wraps itself up with a storybook ending with the statue. You know, I thought it was a pretty funny movie set against the idea of a Superman, somebody stepping up. But in this case, it’s a very humble guy who is nothing but a liar - delivers mail and burns half of it just to stay alive. So, I like the movie."

Speaking to Empire: "We made some mistakes. The real fault... is that it ran into a mystical world. When I look back at it, that was crap. The writers’ strike was coming hard and fast. It was just terrible to do a movie where you’ve got to have a story in three weeks."

Speaking to Huffington Post: "I said, ‘In 20 years, it might be different.’ But that didn't help for the coming years. Ultimately, at that time, they were shocked, of course, to a certain degree. They were also a bit pissed off, I think, that it was so overly sexual and so much nudity-oriented."

Writing in 2015 on Twitter (via ComicBook.com): "A year ago I had a fantastic version of this. And it would have received great reviews. You'll probably never see it. That's reality though."

Speaking to Vice: "It was too much. It was just... it was too much...but boy, am I proud of what we pulled off. To an extent, I see it as an unfinished film."

Speaking to The Guardian: "The thing was, it was a very low-budget film, and it was designed as a very small thing - but there's no such thing when she's involved. So... I just don't accept that's a bad film. It's exactly the film I intended to make. It's supposed to be ironic, and the most politically incorrect film of its period. But the irony was lost by the enormity of her fame, I suppose.'