Gigli 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.
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. (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. ).
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. It was also named by the Global language Monitor as one of the top words from Hollywood impacting the English Language for 2003. It was eventually withdrawn from U.S. theatres after only 3 weeks (one of the shortest circulation times for a big-budget movie), earning a total of only $6 million domestically and $1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. 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." 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". Currently, Yahoo! Movies rates Gigli number one on their Bottom Rated Movies of All Time, with a critics rating of D- and a user rating of F.
The Onion, a satirical newspaper, ran an article about the film, titled "Gigli focus groups demand new ending in which Affleck and Lopez die.".Wikipedia
