A good director can make a good movie on a small budget only if he has good material to work with. The scripts for Steven's last couple of efforts have not been the greatest, on a scale from spectacularly awful to adequately mediocre. But a bad to mediocre director with a bad script and a small budget - well, you do the math.
There's nothing stopping Steven from doing a good film on a low budget, if he'd only pick a good script. But he doesn't - it's as if he no longer has the ability to discern what's good and what isn't. It's the horrible writing in the scripts that's driving me wild. Like, where are these writers coming from, and how does such rubbish even get a second look, let alone be bought and produced? Oi....
Mutant zombies on a submarine... nothing about that sounds good (unless maybe Joss Whedon writes the script. He, at least, would know what to do with mutant zombies on a submarine. Anyone else, and we're looking at an Ed Wood production. Gack.).
-TD, horrified beyond belief at the sheer awfulness about to be inflicted on a long-suffering fanbase