‘Gigli’ was critically panned and a field workplace bomb, nevertheless it’s additionally the movie that birthed Bennifer — and allowed Ben Affleck to find his ardour for guiding.
Even Oscar winner Ben Affleck has a foul film or two — however none are as memorable as his field workplace bomb Gigli with girlfriend Jennifer Lopez. The 2003 flick had loads of hype on account of Bennifer mania on the time, however in the end bombed on the field workplace — bringing in $7.2 million worldwide after costing $75 million to make. Regardless of the dangerous evaluations, Ben nonetheless appears to be like on the venture — which did introduce him to J.Lo — as a “present.”
“If the response to Gigli hadn’t occurred, I most likely wouldn’t have in the end determined, ‘I don’t actually have every other avenue however to direct films,’ which has turned out to be the true love of my skilled life,” Ben stated throughout an interview with BFF Matt Damon in Leisure Weekly, which was printed on Jan. 11. “So in these methods, it’s a present. And I did get to fulfill Jennifer, the connection with whom has been actually significant to me in my life,” he added.
Jennifer was married to Cris Judd on the time they began filming Gigli, nonetheless her marriage fell aside shortly after. Ben and J.Lo’s on-set friendship shortly grew to become an off-screen romance that resulted in a media frenzy (which additionally birthed the nickname “Bennifer”). The couple, then of their early 30s, grew to become engaged in Nov. 2002 after Ben proposed at his mom’s Boston dwelling with an iconic Harry Winston pink diamond that price a reported $2 million. After suspending their Labor Day 2003 marriage ceremony, the couple sadly cut up for in Jan. 2004 — shockingly rekindling their romance in April 2021.
Throughout the chat, Ben mirrored on the previous media consideration surrounded his relationship with Jen and the way it affected Gigli. “The humorous identify, the Jennifer Lopez romance and overexposure of that, it was sort of an ideal storm,” he recalled. “And I bear in mind speaking to [director Martin Brest] the Friday it got here out and I used to be prefer it’s simply spectacular, it’s a tsunami, it couldn’t be worse. That is as dangerous because it will get,” Ben stated. The field workplace bomb, he added, “engendered a variety of detrimental emotions in individuals about” him, which he revealed “was miserable and actually made me query issues and really feel disillusioned and have a variety of self-doubt.”