For the best part of a decade now, Hollywood marketers has shown a penchant for promoting the ‘visionary’ – you’ll be familiar with trailers claiming the latest film hitting your multiplex as being from ‘visionary director [INSERT NAME HERE]’. Our research suggests the trend started around the time of Watchmen’s first trailer in 2008, which featured the line ‘From the visionary director of 300.’ This credit provoked some questioning; that comic book adaptation’s director, Zack Snyder, only had two prior feature credits to his name before being awarded this lofty title: fellow faithful comic adaptation 300, and a remake of Dawn of the Dead. Was it premature to label this figure a visionary based on little evidence of his own originality?

Further ‘visionaries’ have been cited in trailers since, some of which have made more sense, but the latest example to get some pundits a-tweeting was the initial trailer for asylum horror A Cure for Wellness, which attributed the status to director Gore Verbinski. The Verbinski who helmed much of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise that went so stale? The man whose last film, The Lone Ranger, was a notable box office bomb?

Is Gore Verbinski a visionary director? Our verdict: a resounding yes, actually…

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