Gigli

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Not to be confused with Gigi
Gigli

Movie poster for Gigli
Directed by Martin Brest
Produced by Martin Brest
Casey Silver
Written by Martin Brest
Starring Ben Affleck
Jennifer Lopez
Al Pacino
Christopher Walken
Lainie Kazan
Music by John Powell
Cinematography Robert Elswit
Editing by Julie Monroe
Billy Weber
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Revolution Studios
Release date(s) August 1, 2003
Running time 121 min
Language English
Budget $54,000,000 (estimated)
Gross revenue $6,068,735 (USA)
IMDb profile
Ratings
United Kingdom:  15
United States:  R

Gigli (pronounced[help] /ˈdʒiːli/ or /ˈʒiːli/) is a film released in 2003 which was written and directed by Martin Brest, starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Lainie Kazan.

Originally, the film was intended to be a very dark comedy with no romantic subplot, but the producers demanded script rewrites throughout filming.[citation needed] The critical reception of the film was very poor and the film became infamous as one of the worst movies ever.

Contents

Larry Gigli (Affleck) is a low ranking mobster who is commanded to kidnap the disabled, Baywatch-obsessed younger brother (Justin Bartha) of a powerful federal prosecutor, to save his mobster boss from prison.

Gigli successfully convinces the man, Brian, to go off with him by promising to take him "to the Baywatch". However, Gigli's boss does not trust him; he hires a woman calling herself Ricki (Jennifer Lopez) to take over the job.

Although Gigli is attracted to Ricki, he resents the fact that Louis (Lenny Venito), his boss, does not have faith in him and that he has to take orders from Ricki. He is also frustrated by Brian's insistence on going to the Baywatch and Ricki's lesbianism. The events of the movie take on a darker turn when Larry and Ricki receive orders from Ray to murder Brian, something neither of them wants to do.

The movie was considered a spectacular failure, often called the worst movie of 2003, grossing less than $4 million in its opening weekend after costing $54 million to make. It earned nearly universally negative reviews and scores only a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes.[1] (Gigli also set a record for the biggest second-weekend drop in box office gross of any film in wide release since that statistic was kept; its gross dropped by almost 82% in its second weekend compared to its first.[2]). By its third weekend on release, only 73 U.S. theaters were showing it, down from 2,215 during its first weekend, a drop of 97%.[3]

The public reaction to Gigli led to the film becoming a synonym for "poor quality" during the summer of 2003, especially on late-night talk shows.[citation needed] It was also named by the Global language Monitor as one of the top words from Hollywood impacting the English Language for 2003.[4] It was eventually withdrawn from U.S. theatres after only 3 weeks (one of the shortest circulation times for a big-budget movie), earning a total of only $6 million domestically and $1 million abroad. In terms of budget percentage, it is one of the biggest box-office bombs ever. In the UK, the movie was dropped by virtually every cinema after critics universally panned it. The Times newspaper gave the movie a rating below its lowest possible score of 0 stars.[citation needed] To this date, Gigli is the only film to receive this score from the Times.

The film received six Razzies in the 2003 Golden Raspberry Awards – Worst Picture, Worst Actor, Worst Actress, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay and Worst Screen Couple. It is also interesting to note that for a film to win the "Academy Awards grand slam," it must win the awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Actress and Best Writing, Screenplay. Conversely, winning those awards' Razzie counterparts makes Gigli the only film to ever perform the "Razzie grand slam." A year later, the film won a seventh Razzie for "Worst Comedy of Our first 25 years."

Currently, Yahoo! Movies rates Gigli number one on their Bottom Rated Movies of All Time,[5] with a critics rating of D-.[6]

The Onion, a satirical newspaper, ran an article about the film, titled "Gigli focus groups demand new ending in which Affleck and Lopez die."[7]

Roger Ebert, while panning the film, was one of the very few critics to not write it off completely.[8] He ranked the film with two and a half stars saying, "They didn't quite get to where they wanted to be, but the film is worth seeing for some very good scenes." A rare positive, as opposed to less negative, review came from Amy Dawes of Variety. She conceded the story was ludicrous and that the film would tank, but stated that on balance she found it a fun film with several good performances.[9]

The profanity "fuck" is used 124 times in the movie The only principal character to have never sworn in the movie was Christopher Walken. And the song is mentioned in "Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Virus Alert" meaning, "translate your documents into Swahili, make your TV record Gigli".

  • In March 2006 FX Networks started airing commercials hyping the premiere of Gigli on the network. The commercials seemed to play off the negative media attention by including lines like "The most talked about movie you never saw."
  • Gigli (pronounced Jee-lee), means short cut pasta (suitable for casseroles or salads; also known as Cornetti and Corni di bue).

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