The 2003 movie "Gigli" will go down as one of the biggest box office bombs of the past two decades. Despite the film being the punchline of many jokes, Ben Affleck, who starred in the flop, has called the movie a "gift."
It was during the filming of "Gigli" that Ben met his lady love Jennifer Lopez, who also starred in the film.
"[Gigli] didn't work and we did five weeks of reshoots, which we knew were not gonna work. It was a movie that didn't work….," Ben told his pal Matt Damon in an interview for Entertainment Weekly. "It's just that it became a story in and of itself. The funny name, the Jennifer Lopez romance and overexposure of that, it was kind of a perfect storm."
As the movie was opening in theaters, Ben recalled a discussion with the film's director, Marty Brest.
"I remember talking to Marty the Friday it came out and I was like it's just spectacular, it's a tsunami, it couldn't be worse. This is as bad as it gets," Ben relayed to Matt.
The film's poor reception even caused Ben to shift roles in the moviemaking business, something he's now grateful for.
"Interestingly, I learned more about directing on that movie than anything else because Marty is a brilliant director, really gifted. It's not like it's worse than all… there's a bunch of horrible movies and in terms of losing money, I've had five movies — at least! — that have lost more money than 'Gigli' has," he said, later noting, "If the reaction to Gigli hadn't happened, I probably wouldn't have ultimately decided, 'I don't really have any other avenue but to direct movies,' which has turned out to be the real love of my professional life. So in those ways, it's a gift."
Ben also isn't blind to the fact that he met J.Lo on the set, as the two began dating in 2002 and got engaged that year. "Bennifer" would ultimately split in early 2004. However, the duo reconciled in early 2021.
"I did get to meet Jennifer, the relationship with whom has been really meaningful to me in my life," Ben said in the new interview.
"Gigli," Ben says, also taught him a lot about public perception.
"But really, the truth about that movie and what it taught me was how much everything around a movie sort of dictates the way people see it. But for being a movie that's such a famous bomb and a disaster, very few people actually saw the movie," he said. "It doesn't work, by the way. It's a sort of horse's head in a cow's body. And the studio at the time, because I had begun having this relationship with Jennifer Lopez, which was selling a lot of magazines and appeared to generate a lot of enthusiasm, they just predictably latched onto, 'They want a romantic comedy. They want the two of them together. More of that!' And it was just like that 'SNL' sketch: "Bad Idea."