Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck first met in 2002 on the set of their movie Gigli, which came out the following year.

At the time, Jennifer was married to her second husband, Cris Judd.

Jennifer has since admitted, in an interview with People in 2016, “I really felt like when I met Ben, ‘Okay, this is it.”

While the movie created one of the most iconic on/off couples in Hollywood, the film was less successful.

Gigli is considered one of the worst movies of all time, making just $7.2 million worldwide.

This is a far cry from the big numbers achieved by Ben and Jennifer at the box office in the rest of their careers.

Gigli focuses on Ben Affleck’s titular hitman hired by the mob to kidnap the brother of a powerful federal prosecutor. When plans go wrong, his boss sends in a mysterious woman known only as Ricki (Jennifer Lopez) to finish the job Gigli can’t. Despite its reputation, Ben Affleck has no regrets. In a conversation with Matt Damon for EW, Affleck credited Gigli for inspiring his move to his “real love” of directing and his relationship with Jennifer Lopez.

Jennifer Lopez And Ben Affleck’s Film, Gigli, Became A Box Office Disaster

Making just $7.7 million worldwide against a $75.6 million budget, Gigli is one of the most expensive box office flops of all time. In an interview with Variety, director Martin Brest revealed what went wrong with the film that has now become synonymous with bad cinema.

The director admits he won’t even mention the movie’s name and simply calls it the “G movie.” According to Brest, the film was originally very different from what appeared onscreen.

“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… The themes of the movie were radically different. The plot was different. The purpose of the movie was different. But I can’t escape blame.”

He added, “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.”

Ben Affleck admits that the film’s failure made him concerned for his whole career. “It engendered a lot of negative feelings in people about me. There’s that aspect of people that I got to see that was sad and hard, it was depressing and really made me question things and feel disappointed and have a lot of self-doubt.”

He also felt like the media whirlwind around him and Jennifer Lopez stopped his star from ascending. “I was typecast as myself. Too many people weren’t getting past what they read about me. That was damaging. I can tell from experience it’s bad for you, and bad for your career.”

“So I took a break, went away for a while and let things calm down.”

How Ben Affleck Felt About Jennifer Lopez During Gigli Production

Ben Affleck met Jennifer Lopez on the set of Gigli in 2002. The pair were engaged by the end of 2002 and split in 2004, before rekindling their romance in 2021.

While Ben signed onto the project because he was a fan of the director, Martin Brest, it was his relationship with Jennifer that changed both his project and his life.

“The studio at the time was intoxicated with the idea, 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.”

The Argo director and actor thinks his relationship with the singer overshadowed the movie and attracted the wrong audience. “They just predictably latched onto, ‘The [public] want a romantic comedy, they want the two of them together.’”

Ben also believed that his relationship with Jennifer and the gossip surrounding the film tainted his movie career. He admitted, “I was no longer in control of my life. I thought I wanted certain things, but I didn’t. I got lost. I felt suffocated, miserable and gross. I should never have gone down that route or got sucked in to all the publicity.”

In 2016, the Hustlers star reflected on the start of her relationship with Ben after meeting on set, “We didn’t try to have a public relationship,” she said. “We just happened to be together at the birth of the tabloids, and it was like ‘Oh my God.’ It was just a lot of pressure.”

Jennifer also revealed her first impression of Ben after they met during the read-through. “I felt like … ‘Okay, this is it,’” she said. “[But] sometimes I feel like what you think people are and how you see them when you love them is different than when they reveal later.”

Before Gigli premiered, Ben Affleck played the “boyfriend” part in Jennifer Lopez’s music video for “Jenny from the Block” in 2002.

Why Jennifer Lopez And Ben Affleck’s Next Movie Did Better

Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez reunited after Gigli for Kevin Smith’s Jersey Girl. The film told the story of a widower (Ben Affleck) struggling to put his life back together while raising a little girl on his own.

Jersey Girl grossed $25.2 million in North America, and $10.8 million internationally, taking home a total box office gross of $36.1 million, against a $35 million budget. While better than Gigli, it was still a disappointing return considering the talent involved.

When promoting the film, Ben expressed his hope that audiences could put Gigli out their minds when watching Jersey Girl.

“Gigli was a movie that definitely suffered from the surfeit of publicity about me and Jen. So it was kind of, ‘Enough already,’ before the movie came out,” Ben explained. “Also Gigli, while it was a great experience and while I had a great time making it, didn’t really, ultimately work as a movie, and ‘Jersey Girl’ really does. I believe it’s a beautiful movie, and I’m really proud of it.”

Ben Affleck surprised viewers by making a cameo in Jennifer Lopez’s original Amazon Prime movie This Is Me… Now: A Love Story released in February 2024.