Movies - Gigli

	Movies - Gigli

Gigli (pronounced "zhee-lee") 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 also starred in the movie.

Originally a very dark comedy with no romantic subplot, the producers demanded script rewrites throughout filming.

In the final version of the film, Larry Gigli (Affleck) is a lowly thug who is tasked with the kidnapping of the mentally retarded, Baywatch obsessed younger brother of a powerful federal prosecutor, in an attempt to save his mobster boss from prison. The task proves to be difficult for Gigli, so Ricki (Lopez), a lesbian assassin, is sent to oversee him.

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The movie was considered a spectacular failure, with an opening weekend ranking of 7th, and having grossed less than $4 million in its opening weekend after costing $54 million to make, and earning nearly universally negative reviews. (Gigli also set a record for the biggest second-weekend drop in box office gross of any film in wide release since that statistic began to be kept; its gross dropped by almost 82% in its second weekend compared to its first. ) This public reaction led to its becoming a synonym for "poor quality" for a brief period in the summer of 2003, especially on late-night talk shows and was withdrawn from US theatres after only 3 weeks (one of the shortest circulation times for a big-budget movie), earning a total of only $6 million domestically and $1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 second only to Cutthroat Island (which cost almost $100 million, but earned only $10 million) as the biggest box-office bomb ever. In the UK, the movie was virtually dropped by every cinema after a lot of negative reviews received from the critics. The Times newspaper gave the movie the rating below their lowest possible score of 0 stars, the only movie to receive this score.

Although the film itself was widely seen as shockingly bad (with Lopez's "It's turkey time" sexual banter being the absolute low point), the media attention over Affleck and Lopez's engagement may have severely hampered the movie's reputation. Film critics were so fearsomely derisive that there was speculation as to whether they were competing to see who could give the nastiest review.

It has been suggested (particularly by the film's stars) that Gigli is not necessarily as bad as the reviews suggest, but rather happened to become a "lightning rod" film for public scorn, of a type that appears once every few years. Previous examples of films that became pariahs in the film industry may be found in Films considered the worst ever. Other examples include Heaven's Gate
(1980), The Bonfire of the Vanities
(1990), Hudson Hawk
(1991), Far and Away
(1992), Last Action Hero
(1993), Waterworld
(1995), Cutthroat Island
(1995), The Postman
(1997), Mortal Kombat: Annihilation
(1997), and Freddy Got Fingered
(2001).

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. Users of the Internet Movie Database have voted the film a prominent position on the site's list of the "100 worst films ever made".

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Gigli ]

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Movies - Gigli

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