12 different directors contributed to the misshapen mess that was Movie 43, but it’s Peter Farrelly whose decided to speak out against the slew of bad reviews that the comedy has received from critics.

The film should have been a big box office success, boasting in its cast as it did the likes of Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Halle Berry, Uma Thurman, Seth Macfarlane and a whole host others in its series of mini-vignettes. However, a critical mauling has left it with an average rating of 4% on reviews aggregating site Rotten Tomatoes, whilst some critics have been moved enough to call it the worst film of all time. As one of the 12 directing, Farrelly – who can boast comedy successes like There’s Something About Mary and Stuck On You in his resume – took the haters to task on Twitter.

"To the critics: Movie 43 is not the end of the world. It's just a $6-million movie where we tried to do something different. Now back off," he fumed, adding "To the critics: You always complain that Hollywood never gives you new stuff, and then when you get it, you flip out," he added in a separate 140-character missive. "Lighten up." Among the many derogatory comments about the film, the most amusing was perhaps Richard Roeper’s of the Chicago Sun Times, the unimpressed critic describing the movie as “the Citizen Kane of awful”.

What did we think of Movie 43?

Check out the trailer for the film.