Improve mediocre or bad careers of actors or directors

Pia Zadora becomes an actual porn star, and is thus regarded as a top-ranked performer in a bottom-ranked genre, rather than as a bottom-ranked performer in higher-ranked genres.
 
Or going in the reverse direction, Cronenberg decides he wants to use Marilyn Chambers in other stuff after Rabid, and she ends up as a scream-queen, with the odd foray into arthouse horror.

Mind you, for this to work, it might help if her porn career had been confined to softcore. The late 70s wasn't ready for allout crossover, as Harry Reems sadly discovered when he got canned from Grease.
 
Divine doesn't die, and is thus able to build on his work in Trouble In Mind, and more fully participate in John Waters' mainstream phase.
 
Jan Micheal Vincent - was once the highest paid actor on TV.

And he was truly awful - the man had the charisma of a bit of 2 by 4 - God he was bad - mind you the Helicopter was cool

Have him be the lead for a major series or 2 o films - perhaps a US James Bond type thing
 
M. Night Shyamalan decides to work another original project and save working on the Avatar franchise for the sequel (or at least directing duties - someone else directs this version of The Last Airbender).

Mind you, this only delays his worst period into the early 2010's
 
Your job is to improve the careers of directors and actors that had a bad or clearly improvable careers

George Lucas doesn't take a 22-year break from directing. After producing "Return of the Jedi," he returns to the director's chair with the 1987 WWII epic "Red Tails" which focuses on the Tuskegee Airmen. The film is nominated for Best Picture and wins awards for editing and sound design.
 
Al Pacino either finds a way to stay out of Revolution or finds a director and producer who will do a better job and avoid the flop
 

Driftless

Donor
Don Knotts was a supreme comedic actor, but with his slight build, and nervous man schtick, he got typecast. We did get to see on a few occasions, both on the Andy Griffith show and elsewhere, that he had range as a dramatic actor. Pop him into a straight dramatic role in one of the 1970's large cast movies like "The Sting", "Chinatown", or "Kelly's Heroes". For a stretch, swap him into the everyman Dennis Weaver role in the thriller "Duel".

His career arc might have taken a wider variety of roles.
 

Garrison

Donor
Fred Ward, fine actor who appeared in some good films ilke 'Tremors' but never made it to the A-list. Maybe have 'Remo: Unarmed and Dangerous be a mjor hit. That might also have an impact on the career of one Kate Mulgrew.

Adam Sandler, have him bite the bullet and focus on dramatic roles like 'Uncut Gems' earlier in his career.
 
Christopher Reeve decides to do Officer and a Gentleman, Arthur, Body Heat, as well as American Gigolo instead of Somewhere in Time giving him enough pull in Hollywood to say no to Superman after part III (and likely nixing Richard Pryor from the movie allowing it to be better). Chris trusts his gut and takes the role in Romancing the Stone, it's sequel Jewel of the Nile, and then Fatal Attraction. The chance to work with Donner again convinces him to take the Riggs role in Lethal Weapon. He also stays in Running Man without Superman IV to conflict, and later, Total Recall. When Pretty Woman comes around, he doesn't drop out. (these were all roles he turned down IOTL, insanely).

Also, have Ian McCellan and Mark Hamill nab the roles in Amadeus they played on Broadway helping Mark escape typecasting and exposing Ian earlier to American audiences.
 
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Christopher Reeve decides to do Officer and a Gentleman, Arthur, as well as American Gigolo instead of Somewhere in Time giving him enough pull in Hollywood to say no to Superman after part III (and likely nixing Richard Pryor from the movie allowing it to be better). He also stays in Running Man without Superman IV to conflict. When Pretty Woman comes around, he doesn't drop out.

Also, have Ian McCellan and Mark Hamill nab the roles in Amadeus they played on Broadway helping Mark escape typecasting and exposing Ian earlier to American audiences.

I can see Reeve doing roles associated with Richard Gere, but I have a hard time seeing him as...Arthur?

A very different version of the role than what Moore delivered, anyway. I actually think it might hurt his career, to have Superman as a drunken wastrel, reciting lines like...

HOOKER: My father raped me when I was twelve.

ARTHUR; Oh yeah. My old man fucked me up as well.

Granted, that sort of thing might have gone over a bit better in a time closer to the pre-feminist era, but still.
 
After establishing Brooksfilms in the late 1970s, old Mel decides he'd like to try his hand at directing, rather than just producing, art-house fare, and so helms a couple of high brow features.

Not that I would wish a different director for The Elephant Man or The Fly, to name two Brooksfilms with superb helmsmanship. Maybe Brooks could direct a couple of light comedies, more cereberal than his usual stuff, but still aimed at the funny bone.
 
Paul Thomas Anderson realizes that, while yes, he might have struck narrative gold with Boogie Nights, directing your own scripts is, in general, an invitation to self-indulgent solipsism, and teams up with a few good screenwriters.
 
Michael Cimino either does not do Heaven's Gate or makes Heaven's Gate as a modest, low-budget Western, which he originally conceived it to be.
 
Some Directors that should have had better careers.
Fritz Lang: He had a good American Career in the 40's and early 50's but by the Late 50's his films were not attracting audiences.
He went back to Germany and did a couple more films that were also failures.
Somehow if he could get some better material and some better castings in his 50's films, he might have stayed in the US and continue to make good thrillers till the mid 70's.

Another Director is Andrew Stone . He did a number of great thrillers in the 50's including The Night Holds Terror, Cry Terror and the Last Voyage.
But he had trouble raising funding for films in the 60's and he did two big budget biographies on composers that fail to find audiences. So no "Song of Norway" and "the Great Waltz" for starters . Have him stick with Thrillers and we could have seen more interesting films from him up till the 1980's.
In my Step by Step Timeline, he does TV movies in the 70's and then returns to Movies with "the Kidnapping of a President" and "The Zero Factor " .

Ida Lupino was a Actress and a Director. She was only able to do one thriller 1953 "The Hitch-Hiker" . But It a classic and make one wonder what if she had been able to direct more. I have her do more thrillers in my Step by Step Timeline including a 50 adaption of "the Talented Mr. Ripley"
 
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