J-Lo dumps ben? [Archive]

Black Dog

08-06-2003, 09:26 AM

Gee, do ya think it had anything to do with this:

Hollywood Looks to Shake Off'Gigli' Flop

By DAVID GERMAIN
AP Movie Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The mob romp "Gigli" ended up a Hollywood disaster movie, yet stars Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez and most of their collaborators should emerge unscathed.

Losing big, it seems, is just part of the game called show business.

Hollywood heads generally don't roll over a single flop, even a turkey such as "Gigli." It had a dismal opening-weekend gross of $3.8 million - a pittance for a high-profile movie with a $54 million price tag.

Revolution Studios, which made "Gigli," and Sony Pictures, which distributed it, will end up losing about $30 million, while real-life sweethearts Affleck and Lopez lose a little face amid the movie's lousy reviews ("Unwatchable," according to Christy Lemire of The Associated Press).

"Nobody loses their job as a general proposition over one bomb," said Kim Masters, a film columnist for Esquire magazine.

If anyone pays the price it likely will be writer-director Martin Brest, who also served as co-producer and had the last word on the movie's final cut.

That's a rarity in tag-team Hollywood, where movies often have gaggles of credited producers, writers and executive producers, whose sheer numbers help insulate them from any blame.

Brest, who did not return phone calls seeking comment, is a choosy director who has made just five movies since his Hollywood debut with George Burns' 1979 picture "Going in Style."

He scored a huge hit with 1984's "Beverly Hills Cop," then had solid critical and commercial results from "Midnight Run" and "Scent of a Woman" before stumbling with the 1998 big-budget dud "Meet Joe Black" - his last movie before "Gigli."

"The one person who may have a hard time with their next project would be Martin Brest," said Chris Gardner, who covers the movie business for the trade paper The Hollywood Reporter. "A lot of it at this point will fall on his shoulders."

Brest feuded with Revolution founder Joe Roth over the movie's original downbeat conclusion, ultimately agreeing to reshoot the happy ending that was released.

Despite two misfires in a row, Brest's phone might keep ringing. A hit like "Beverly Hills Cop" has a long shelf life in Hollywood.

"People tend to fail upward in this business," said David Miller, an entertainment analyst with Sanders Morris Harris. "Half the game in this town, in the movie business, is not creating a hit film. It's getting a film made in the first place."

In the beginning, "Gigli" had a lot going for it, including two of the hottest movie stars in the business - who just happened to be engaged.

Starring Affleck as a hoodlum who falls for Lopez's lesbian mobster on a kidnapping assignment, it was meant as the sort of offbeat, "Get Shorty"-style tale that often clicks with audiences by defying Hollywood formula.

But trouble struck as the film lumbered through months of bad press and reports of conflict between Brest and his backers.

"It shows you no one filmmaker, star, producer, director or studio is immune to the vagaries of this business," said producer Peter Guber, head of Mandalay Entertainment and former studio boss at Sony. "What makes the business both exciting and anxiety-producing is that success and failure are millimeters apart."

Revolution blames tabloid gossip about Lopez and Affleck for overexposing the stars and undermining the movie's appeal. That rumor mill, compounded by "Gigli's" failure, also might bode ill for Lopez and Affleck's second collaboration, next year's romance "Jersey Girl."

With $20 million to $22 million in marketing costs on top of the production budget, Sony and Revolution spent about $75 million on "Gigli." Realizing the movie was on its way to tanking, the studios cut back on advertising at the last minute, figuring the money was better spent on other films.

Once revenue from overseas box office, TV and video are added, "Gigli" is expected to post a loss of $30 million to $35 million for Sony and Revolution - small change against Sony's billion-dollar-plus annual box-office revenue or the hundreds of millions Revolution movies will take in this year.

"Gigli's" rotten reception and the bad blood between the director and Roth could tag Brest as a problem filmmaker, making it tougher for him to find work in Hollywood.

Still, other directors have moved on to new successes after making bombs, among them Terry Gilliam, who rebounded with the "The Fisher King" and "Twelve Monkeys" after flopping with "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen," and Mike Nichols, whose hits after 1975's lemon "The Fortune" include "Working Girl" and "The Birdcage."

Even Michael Cimino - director of "Heaven's Gate," the 1980 debacle that contributed to United Artists' collapse - landed a few directing jobs afterward.

It generally takes a string of failures before studios and production companies hunt for scapegoats. That often winds up being the marketing and publicity people charged with selling movies to audiences. Last year, MGM replaced key marketing executives after flopping with "Windtalkers," "Hart's War" and "Rollerball."

Studios generally roll with the punches, hoping hits offset flops. Sony is fresh off a monster year in 2002, paced by the blockbuster "Spider-Man."

Revolution and Sony scored with "Anger Management" and "Daddy Day Care." They hope their upcoming live-action "Peter Pan" and Julia Roberts' "Mona Lisa Smile" will help balance losses on "Gigli" and another recent stinker, "Hollywood Homicide."

"Gigli" is a "bump in the road. It's part of the business. Not everything can work," said Revolution partner Tom Sherak. "Could I sit here and blame somebody? I can, but I won't do that, because there's nobody to blame. We truly did everything we could to make the picture work."

Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

And did you really believe they ever intended to get married in the first place?