Gigli Director Martin Brest Reflects on Radically Changed Movie

9 months ago

Gigli Director Martin Brest Reflects on Radically Changed Movie

Director Martin Brest has reflected on how much his movie Gigli changed in postproduction.

Brest had a successful directing career behind him, having helmed movies like Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run, and Meet Joe Black. That all changed when he wrote and directed Gigli, a 2003 romantic crime comedy movie notable for starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez while they were romantically involved in real life. It also starred Al Pacino, who Brest had directed in an Oscar-winning performance in Scent of a Woman.

However, the movie was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews from critics and became one of the biggest box office bombs of all time, grossing a mere $7.2 million on a $75.6 million budget. In the 20 years since the movie’s failure, Brest has not made another movie.

In a rare public appearance, Brest sat down with Variety and talked about what happened with Gigli. “The movie originally started very differently from what seems like the beginning now. I wonder if ever a movie had been changed that much… I’m sure it has in the history of Hollywood, but it was changed so radically. When it came to finishing that movie, I remember the composer came up with a piece of music and played it, and he looked at me for my reaction. I said, ‘I knew why this scene used to be in the movie and what its purpose was. I don’t have any idea why it’s in the movie now.'”

“The themes of the movie were radically different,” he continues. “The plot was different. The purpose of the movie was different. But I can’t escape blame. [But] it’s so weird — 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.”

He details what led to this change from his original vision. “Extensive disagreements between the studio and myself got to the point where post-production was shut down for eight months while we battled it out. In the end, I was left with two choices: quit or be complicit in the mangling of the movie.”

“To my eternal regret, I didn’t quit, so I bear responsibility for a ghastly cadaver of a movie,” he says. “Once key scenes were cut, it became like a joke with its punchline removed; endless contortions could never create the illusion that what remained was intended. Extensive reshooting and re-editing turned characters, scenes, story, and tone upside down in the futile attempt to make the increasing mess resemble a movie.”