People forget most major Hollywood directors aren't just or most significantly 'creatives', people who are hired to produce original creative works. They are business men just as much as the executive producers. Want to succeed big time in Hollywood as a director? Make sure you put together a film that appeals to the masses by use of cliches and established successful film patterns. And don't take any risks trying to appeal to both the fans and non-fans, just target the largest demographic from the get go. JJ Abrams doesn't make high quality original films because that's not what sells, and he has no interest in working by any other metric than what sells.