What went wrong?

The funny thing to me is that after LOTR Spielberg brought him on as his protege. Reminds me of when I bought a stock and it tanked to 5 cents

Most directors tend to get their view contaminated over time. Just look at Robert Rodriguez, how kino was his first movie compared to the rest.

I think this is common in most arts. Definitely in music the debut album is usually the best, or the most creative. Artists run out of ideas over time.

People say that the reason this happens is because they had 20 years to work on the first and only a few to work on the following ones, but even when they get 10+ years of 'vacation', they rarely come up with good material.

I believe what happens is the environment they are immersed in changes, and they get 'contaminated' for being too close to other famous creators and money people.

Good point.
A great example of this is of course Rage Against The Machine, who became instant millionaires after their debut album. I guess it's hard to change your course as an artist when your first ideas made you successful. Never change a winning team, so success breeds creative laziness.

It's not just that success itself breeds stagnation but that there's so much demand for more of the original work. Only a few people can withstand the expectation of more of the same after a success. Lynch is one of few people who can for example. But also George Lucas and a few other directors who are more accessible.

For a trilogy of movies that were a bad idea in the first place, that he clearly didn't want to make, The Hobbit movies weren't that bad. Someone left a big pile of shit on his doorstep, his Mexican cleaning man took one look at it and quit, and so he said "fine, I guess I'll have to clean that up myself" and he did as good of a job as you can expect, but there will always still be the slight smell of shit about the doormat.

kys troll

Pleb.

King Kang was good, fuck you.