With a winning streak that started in 2004 with Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy and ran through 2007’s Superbad, the goodwill that greeted Judd Apatow’s productions was bound to eventually turn sour. When his latest production, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, opened to largely empty theaters, waves of hyperbole were unleashed from people both within the industry and outside observers. Apatow’s career was pronounced to be seriously injured, or even dead.

Can one financial dud actually kill a career? Whenever this topic is raised, Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate always rears its ugly head. While it is one of the most notorious flops in Hollywood history, it didn’t completely end Cimino’s career. He continued making movies, they were just on a smaller budget and the critical and financial success of his early work eluded him.

But things don’t have to be that dire. Some of the biggest actors, directors and producers have suffered an embarrassing flop, and every time that happened, there was someone willing to declare them washed up.

With the release of the colossal bomb, 1941, Steven Spielberg’s honeymoon with the critics and studios seemed over. It didn’t take long for Spielberg to issue a response in the form of his next film, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Francis Ford Coppola’s impressive run in the seventies came crashing to a halt with 1982’s One from the Heart. A financial and critical disaster, it bankrupted Coppola who had poured his own money into the ballooning budget. While he hasn’t returned to the form he had in his heyday, he has turned out several solid films since that painful lesson and acted as the producer behind the burgeoning career of his daughter, Sofia.

Saddled with a disruptive studio and a sub-par script, David Fincher’s feature debut on Alien 3 was a resounding disappointment. Despite this popular opinion, Fincher rebounded to deliver Seven, Fight Club, Panic Room and Zodiac.

The list could go on and on: Joel Silver and Bruce Willis suffered a humiliating flop with Hudson Hawk. Kevin Costner’s career has been nothing but ups and downs. But for every Waterworld or The Postman, he has delivered a Dances With Wolves or Open Range.

Coming back to Apatow, can he find the ability to bounce back from the Dewey Cox debacle? Perhaps those who are unable to remember the troubles of the filmmakers discussed in this article don’t realize that this isn’t Apatow’s first disappointing experience. As a television producer, he oversaw the critical darlings, The Ben Stiller Show, Freaks and Geeks, and Undeclared. None of these programs made it past their first seasons. In feature films, he has produced such disappointments as The Cable Guy, Celtic Pride, and the Will Ferrell vehicle, Kicking & Screaming.

If history has taught us anything, it’s that too much success breeds jealousy in others. This backlash was almost inevitable. But if history has taught us that bitter lesson, it has also taught us that Apatow will survive this disappointment.