It’s not that uncommon for a director to take their name off a film, and to leave the moniker Alan Smithee or whatever the current equivalent is behind. However, what’s considerably rarer is when a film is released under the name of one director, but it’s later revealed or rumored that, actually, other hands were at work, either for a solid chunk or even the entirety of a production. That a film was, for want of a better phrase, “ghost directed.”

Granted, some of these stories that we’re about to tell have little chance of ever being fully confirmed, but here are some examples of where the helmer of a film has been called into question. They range from instances of the whole film being reportedly ghost-directed to just large swathes on uncredited helming work being done.

Tombstone

Name director: George P. CosmatosBut was it actually: Kurt Russell

A popular and successful telling of the Wyatt Earp story that thoroughly trumped Kevin Costner’s attempts to cover the same ground a few months’ later, Tombstone brought together a majestic cast led by Kurt Russell for a film that enjoys regular respins on disc. However, a few years ago it emerged that the late George P. Cosmatos, hardly the most visionary director who walked the earth to be fair, might not have been the man calling the shots on the project after all. The real director? The film’s star, Kurt Russell.