Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are two halves of one of the most popular couples in Hollywood history. Thanks to both of their statuses, the couple has always been in the spotlight which has already been proven to have taken a toll on their relationship. Just like many other Hollywood pairs, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez also met while working.
The two met in 2002 on the set of their first movie, Gigli (2003), directed by Martin Brest. At that time, Jennifer Lopez was married to Cris Judd but the couple divorced the following year, and soon, Bennifer became a thing. While Gigli brought the two lovebirds together, things did not turn out well for the movie.
The Unfortunate Fate of Ben Affleck & Jennifer Lopez’s Movie
Gigli is a crime rom-com that was released back in 2003. The film was directed, written, and co-produced by Martin Brest who is best known for directing projects like Beverly Hills Cop and Scent of a Woman.
The film focuses on Ben Affleck’s titular character assigned to kidnap the brother of a district attorney all while Jennifer Lopez’s Ricki kept an eye on him. And as every other rom-com goes, the two eventually begin falling in love.
While the story in itself had a ton of potential, the execution was not the finest. Gigli was made on a reported budget of $54 million, as per The Numbers, and only managed to bring in a little over $7 million worldwide. This means that the film suffered a loss of a whopping $47 million. It was pulled from the theatres just three weeks after its release.
There are times when a movie does not perform well at the box office but the positive critics’ reviews make up for that failure. However, nothing was going in Gigli’s favor. Even the critics had some harsh words for the film.
The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern called the film the worst allegedly major movie of the young century.
‘Gigli,’ which stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, is the worst movie — all right, the worst allegedly major movie — of our admittedly young century. More stupefying follies may come, but it’s impossible to imagine how they’ll beat this one for staggering idiocy, fatuousness or pretension.
Morgenstern sure didn’t hold back his words and neither did the Washington Post which deemed the film, “torpid, slack, dreary, and, oh yes, nasty, brutish, and long.”
On Rotten Tomatoes, Gigli has a laughable score of 6% on the Tomatometer and the critical consensus states that the film is “bizarre…clumsy” and “a mess.” It even goes on to read that Lopez and Affleck, who are now married, lacked chemistry.
Gigli Was Martin Brest’s Last Movie
After directing bangers like Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run, and Scent of a Woman, Brest made the decision of directing Gigli, which would become the final film of his career as a director. Perhaps the blow was just too much for him.
Of course, the movie was a total flop but the final product that the audience got to see was a bit different than Brest’s vision. He, along with co-producer Casey Silver, set Gigli up at Revolution Studios and for a while, Brest had full creative control to make the movie he wanted. Unfortunately, things started taking a turn for the worse after the first time he shot the film.
According to Silver, the base version of the film was far from perfect but it still received mixed reviews from test audiences, which is far better than what the final cut got.
Silver told Playboy,
It did not preview well, but it had people who absolutely loved it. It was a departure. It had a surrealistic ending. The studio felt it was going along well, but they wanted to redesign what the movie was. They wanted to make it into a mainstream comedy [when Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez] were getting tons of attention.
Eventually, Brest had to give in to the demands and the rest is history. Thus, the film’s fate might have caused the filmmaker to take a step back. Producer Mark Johnson told the magazine,
I have a sneaking suspicion it was really shattering for him. I’m not sure he was able to work up the energy or enthusiasm to go right back at it and found other things to replace it. He’s a talented filmmaker with a lot to say. I can’t believe he’ll stay disappeared.
Maybe one of these days Brest will gather the courage to put himself back into the field and give cinema enthusiasts another iconic film!
Stream Gigli on Prime Video.
