This weekend sees the release of Dark Shadows , marking the eighth time director Tim Burton has teamed with Johnny Depp , his second-favorite performer on screen. (He no doubt frequently has to tell Helena Bonham Carter as much.) So natural is their pairing that we have come to expect a certain level of quality and/or box-office performance from their combined efforts, and an announcement of a new Burton title has generally come to carry the expectation of a Depp appearance. Although Hollywood has long brought us such fruitful and lucrative actor/director relationships — from both Cary Grant and James Stewart’s collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock to Robert De Niro’s legendary work with Martin Scorsese — consider nine other long-term pairings packing a little (or a lot) less luster. Héctor Elizondo / Gary Marshall After Marshall cast character actor Elizondo in his feature directing debut, soap-opera spoof Young Doctors In Love , the two became friends to such an extent that the actor has now appeared in every one of Marshall’s 17 movies. Be it the modern fairy tale Pretty Woman , to the retro fairy tales of The Princess Diaries , or Marshall’s latest unwatchableholiday pictures, Elizondo always manages to steer things a bit closer to the side of classy. Matt Walsh / Todd Phillips As Phillips rose up the Hollywood ladder with his frat-boy-centric films he has done two things: struck box office gold, and taken actor-comedian Matt Walsh with him. Walsh has the kind of face you note, if not outright recognize, thanks to a long career of comedic appearances. But this co-founder of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater is arguably best known as the doctor to whom the Vegas revelers turn for information in The Hangover , and Walsh worked with Phillips for a sixth time in the follow-up, Due Date . Many of those roles found him playing a character by the name of Walsh. Michael Par
