It's Halle Berry's lucky weekend. She's not in Gigli.
The Oscar winner dropped out of the mobster comedy/drama just before production began in late 2001, leaving Jennifer Lopez to sign up for leading-lady duty opposite Ben Affleck.
The rest is movie history. Or, bad movie history, as nation's movie critics might say.
"Nearly as unwatchable as [its title] is unpronounceable."--Los Angeles Times "Hopelessly misconceived exercise in celebrity self-worship."--New York Times "The rare movie that never seems to take off, but also never seems to end."--USA Today
Bad buzz about the movie is so prevalent, and widespread, that even India's Hindustan Times was moved to publish an online story about how real-life lovebirds Lopez and Affleck have vowed to never, ever make a movie together again.
Too late now.
As of Friday afternoon, the movie-review site Rotten Tomatoes (www.rottentomatoes.com) had tracked 90 Gigli reviews. According to the site, just 4 percent of those write-ups had something nice to say. By comparison, Madonna's last cinematic washout, 2002's Swept Away, made with her significant other, director Guy Ritchie, scored a whopping 6 percent "Tomatometer" rating.
Gigli, rhymes with "really," as Affleck's hit-man character, Larry Gigli, is fond of noting, bowed Friday on some 2,200 screens, the weekend's second-biggest opening after the latest American Pie treat, American Wedding.
Box-office expert Brandon Gray, of the Box Office Mojo (www.boxofficemojo.com) Website, said he expects Wedding to walk down the aisle in first place with a respectable $40 million debut. As for Gigli?
"Put aside the reviews, put aside the stars and their off-screen shenanigans, this just isn't a bankable premise for a movie," Gray said.
In short, Gray's predicting the $50 million film to finish out of the top five, with, maybe, a $7 million take.
By comparison, Swept Away "grossed" about $354,000 in its opening weekend. Score one for J.Lo and Affleck on that count.
Also give the duo credit for winning over at least one major critic. In the Chicago Sun-Times, thumbmaster Roger Ebert calls the movie "different, thoughtful and a little daring." He also stands up for the couple's ability to couple on screen--arguably not an easy task since Lopez's character is a lesbian. "The buzz said they didn't have chemistry," Ebert writes, "but the buzz was wrong."
Lopez and Affleck met on the Los Angeles set of Gigli. The film, once upon time pegged for a November 2002 release, was shot so long ago that when filming began Lopez was a newlywed--to dancer/choreographer Cris Judd, whom she married in September 2001.
The designing diva filed for divorce from Judd in July 2002, as paparazzi began to report Lopez-Affleck sightings. The two confirmed their engagement last November, months after they began work on their second film together, Jersey Girl.
Maybe by the time that Kevin Smith comedy opens--it's been pushed back to February 2004--the word "gigli" will have been stricken from our vocabulary.
As it stands now, the Ben/Jen tandem isn't just coping with bad reviews in the mainstream press, but bad press in the supermarket tabloids.
Affleck's camp is refuting, and threatening legal action over, a National Enquirer story that claims he "cheated" on his famed fiancee last month in a Vancouver strip club.
Well, maybe Halle Berry's having a nice, peaceful weekend...