Meaning he isn't responsible for the film being made. He is still directing it. The point was that he isn't the reason it got made... someone (you, perhaps? I forget) was trying to give Marshall credit for making the movie made... and he doesn't deserve credit for that. Harvey Weinstein does.
But once the movie is funded and he is the director, it is still going to be largely or solely his vision (certainly with ITW Disney is having their say in some ways, most especially what happens to Rapunzel).
I also will put blame with Lapine, and to a lesser extent Sondheim (Lapine is writing/written the screenplay, not Sondhiem) if some of these things are true of the final movie and I think they lessen the show. But I also don't know what the contracts say, perhaps they sold the rights and have little to no actual control, and also perhaps Lapine got a contract to adapt the screenplay, but to the pleasure of the director and studio, but even when having to make changes that compromise the show they originally wrote he would rather be the one making them... all of which I understand, even if I don't like.
This won't change the fact that it's Marshall's film of the musical (or Disney's film as directed by Marshall), and he will get the credit or blame if it's great or ruined... and if they've cut the Baker's story and the father/son stuff and the Mysterious Man and "No More", I'll never quite understand that or accept it, even if the movie is good anyway. I'll accept the movie on it's own terms, but presumably I'll always know it could have/should have had that in it. (I won't know how I'll feel till I see it, of course)
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