McG

A former music producer who made his mark as video director for such bands as Sugar Ray and Smash Mouth, McG segued directly to helming blockbuster movies with his feature debut, "Charlie's Angels" (2000). While some decried the film for its lack of substance, it possessed a vibrant energy and enough campy fun to turn McG into a director to watch. But just as soon as he had emerged, McG garnered his share of criticism for the follow-up, "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" (2003), which contained plenty of eye candy, but little in the way of story logic or character development. Adding insult to injury, McG suffered public ridicule for his fear of flying, which grounded his effort to helm the long-awaited reboot of the comic book series, "Superman." Despite his rocky foray into the feature world, he found some degree of success as the executive producer on "Supernatural" (The WB/CW, 2005- ) and "Chuck" (NBC, 2007-12), the latter of which earned its share of critical acclaim, though it struggled to find a large audience. By the time he directed "Terminator Salvation" (2009), McG was ready to recapture the respect that he had first earned almost a decade prior with his debut film.