Is Hiring A First-Time Director A Risk?

Of all the creative jobs involved in the making of a feature film, the role of director is perhaps the most important. It’s also the one which most clearly identifies a film. We talk about Spielberg films and Tarantino films more than we do Streep or Hanks films, even though all of these creatives are at the top of their field.

Some reasons for selecting one director over another are artistic (their skill, their ‘voice’, their connection to the script, etc) while others are pragmatic. When it comes to picking the perfect person to helm a film, producers and financiers want to do all they can to ensure the film will be a financial success.

There is a perception in some quarters that hiring a first-time director is too risky. But is that perception justified? We thought we’d take a look at the data to find out.

We focused on 3,217 narrative (i.e. non-documentary) feature films released between 1999 and 2018 which had just one director. For each film, we have detailed estimates of their financial performance, allowing us to make a reasonable assessment of the project’s overall profitability.

This allows us to look at whether hiring a first-time feature film director is a risk and, if so, by what degree.