This Director Has ‘Eternal Regret’ About a ‘Ghastly’ Jennifer Lopez Movie
Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck are one of Hollywood’s most epic romances. The two originally started dating in the early 2000s, sparking a tabloid frenzy that ultimately resulted in the two splitting. After two decades, they reconnected.
For fans, there are a lot of memorable elements to “Bennifer’s” story, including the notoriously terrible 2003 film Gigli, which starred Affleck and Lopez at the peak of their romance. In a recent interview, the film’s director opened up about why he regrets making Gigli and why he thinks the movie is best described as a “ghastly cadaver.”
‘Gigli’ received terrible reviews
Gigli starred Affleck, Lopez, and an all-star cast. The 2003 film told the story of a softhearted L.A. mobster and his love affair with a woman named Ricki (Lopez). The movie received a lot of hype during production, primarily due to the romance between Affleck and Lopez; however, when it was released, critics slammed Gigli.
On the review site Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 6% on the Tomatometer, along with a 13% audience score. Viewers have remarked on the dialogue, the film’s outrageous plot, and, interestingly enough, the lack of chemistry between the leads as reasons for Gigli’s poor reviews.
What did ‘Gigli’ director Martin Brest say about the film?
No one who made Gigli came away unscathed, including director Martin Brest. In a new interview with Variety, Brest commented on the historically bad film, noting, “I refer to it as ‘the G movie.’ Probably the less said about it the better.”
Brest said that the film changed dramatically over the time that it was in production, revealing: “The themes of the movie were radically different. The plot was different. The purpose of the movie was different. But I can’t escape blame.”
According to Brest, “I literally don’t remember the movie that was released, because I wasn’t underneath it in the way I was under the hood of all my other movies. So it’s really a bloody mess that deserved its excoriation.” Brest said he had disagreements with the production studio, which led to intense reshoots and editing work.
“In the end I was left with two choices: quit or be complicit in the mangling of the movie,” the director said. “To my eternal regret I didn’t quit, so I bear responsibility for a ghastly cadaver of a movie.”
Today, Brest doesn’t remember anything about the experience fondly: “For the first time in my career I had become a true collaborator—not in the benign, creative sense, but rather that of one who, in violation of their true allegiances, cooperates with occupying forces.”
Jennifer Lopez has opened up about the experience making ‘Gigli’
Lopez and Affleck received the lion’s share of the blame for Gigli, at least in the eyes of the public. For Lopez, the whole experience was tough. The actor later revealed to HuffPost that the aftermath of Gigli was one of the hardest parts of her career. “It was a very badly reviewed film,” she said. “I was in a high-profile relationship at the time that fell apart in a really bad way, and so the kind of mix of those two things — the tabloid press had just come into existence at the time, so I was like a poster child for that moment.”
She said: “I was in the tabloids every other week about how my life was falling apart. It was a tough time.”
Of course, Lopez and Affleck would reconnect in 2022, nearly two decades after their post-Gigli romance crashed and burned. It’s likely that these days, the two can think back on that time with some degree of good humor.
