The original director was fired by the bond company. Sky Captain had about 50-zillion different effects companies rolling in the dough - so more single people took on extra work and quit their day jobs to help finish the thing. And then there were too many f/x companies in LA so all the little ones went under… very fascinating… and I think it was the first time that something like this had happened - the original director taking too long and spending too much money and then being fired…

Note to self - if given a blank check, use it expeditiously.
BTW, still haven’t seen it. :D

Not surprising given that this was the first film by a director with no previous Hollywood experience, who’d essentially been given tens of millions of dollars to play in a toy box:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.05/conran.html

And yeah, Paltrow’s performance was pretty bad too.