TMC
05-26-2004, 01:10 AM
http://canoe.ca/JamMovies/mar20_couples-sun.html
Hollywood's cursed couples
By LOUIS B. HOBSON and KEVIN WILLIAMSON
Calgary Sun
The Gigli Curse has some people in Hollywood quivering in their shoes,
while others are stomping their feet.
After what happened with Gigli last year, the current wisdom in Tinseltown
is not to cast real-life couples as on-screen couples.
The Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez pairing in the romantic comedy Gigli drew
some of 2003's most scathing reviews as well as a knee-jerk reaction at the
box-office.
And it wasn't just in North America. The $75-million US comedy made a paltry
$6 million in North America, an anemic $1.2 million in foreign markets and
is struggling to find an audience even on DVD.
The film's implosion is blamed on the hype that surrounded the real-life
romance of its stars.
At first, people couldn't get enough of Affleck and Lopez from the expensive
gifts they lavished on each other to their spats and reconciliations. By the
time Gigli came out, Affleck and Lopez had reached public saturation.
It was not the first time a superstar romance upstaged the artists' films.
Think 1962 and Cleopatra.
This historical epic teamed Elizabeth Taylor, Hollywood's reigning sex
siren, with Richard Burton, one of Britain's most revered classical actors.
Within weeks of arriving on the set of Cleopatra, Taylor and Burton had a
steamier affair than the lovers they were portraying.
Their very public private antics were blamed for the flick's dismal box
office, but that didn't stop studios from building future films around them.
In the space of five years, Burton and Taylor made seven more films
together.
Even when critics praised their work in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and
The Taming of the Shrew they would also suggest it was like watching the
Burton's home movies.
Memories of these casting fiascos has Kevin Smith just a little worried over
the release Friday of his romantic comedy Jersey Girl.
It's the movie Affleck and Lopez did immediately after they'd fallen in love
on the set of Gigli.
"We considered it a real coup that Jennifer agreed to do a cameo in Jersey
Girl and it was because she and Ben were so much in love that she agreed to
do it.
"Now it looks as if we're not so lucky," admits Smith.
Kirsten Dunst says she and her boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal "would love to work
together... It's other people who seem to have problems with us working
together. Gigli ruined it for us."
Dunst was disappointed that Cameron Crowe wouldn't even consider letting
Gyllenhaal play her love interest in Elizabethtown which shoots later this
year.
"Jake and I could totally do it, but after what happened with Gigli no one's
willing to consider pairing us..."
Michael Douglas, who is married to Catherine Zeta-Jones, says the trick for
married actors "is not to play lovers.
"Catherine and I are looking for projects we can do together in which we
aren't playing an on-screen couple."
Douglas and Zeta-Jones were both in Traffic, but Douglas says that's not
quite what they're looking for either.
"Traffic was essentially three little movies that got woven together, so it
wasn't even like Catherine and I were in the same film."
Reese Witherspoon and her husband Ryan Phillippe starred together in Cruel
Intentions.
Though it was a rewarding experience, Witherspoon says they turned down
subsequent offers to work together: "I don't think audiences want to see
real-life couples playing screen couples. It blurs the whole reality and
fantasy thing that movies are supposed to be all about."
Jennifer Aniston agrees.
She says a big-screen pairing of her with hubby Brad Pitt "is not likely to
happen. I just don't think it's a good idea for us to play screen lovers.
It's not that we couldn't do it. It's just that we shouldn't."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Marriage: Impossible.
HOOKED UP: While filming the racing-car flop Days of Thunder.
THE ATTRACTION: Let's forget all the popular rumours -- that the marriage
was a sham, for starters -- and assume they loved each other. Why? Because
you need love to have hate. And when Kidman remarked their split meant she
could "wear heels now," you could see just hear the love dripping from her
voice.
BOMBS AWAY: After Days of Thunder, they teamed for the 1992 dud Far and Away
and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Madonna & Sean Penn
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Spicoli and the Virgin.
HOOKED UP: On the set of her Material Girl music video in 1984.
THE ATTRACTION: Self-styled spoiled diva meets self-styled streetwise tough
guy. The press release almost writes itself.
BOMBS AWAY: Shanghai Surprise, the 1986 flop in which Penn stopped punching
photographers long enough to see his wife's ambitions nearly K.O. his own
promising career.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Madonna & Guy Ritchie
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: The Diva and Her Director.
HOOKED UP: Through mutual friends Sting and his wife, Trudy Styler, who
produced Richie's first film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
THE ATTRACTION: Self-styled spoiled diva meets self-styled streetwise tough
guy. The press release almost writes itself. Again.
BOMBS AWAY: Swept Away, the 2002 flop in which Richie stopped making good
movies long enough to see his wife's need to be a film star nearly K.O. his
own promising career.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Kim Basinger & Alec Baldwin
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Beauty and the Beast.
HOOKED UP: On the set of their alleged comedy The Marrying Man, in which
they clashed with studio "dwarf" -- Baldwin's words, not mine -- Jeffrey
Katzenberg (now co-founder of DreamWorks).
THE ATTRACTION: Just a stab in the dark here -- but their connection
probably wasn't purely intellectual.
BOMBS AWAY: The two paired up in the '90s for a remake of the Steve McQueen
classic The Getaway. Movie-goers did.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Russell Crowe & Meg Ryan
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: When Maximus met Sally ...
HOOKED UP: On the set of their thriller Proof Of Life, while Ryan was still
married to Dennis Quaid. She wasn't for long.
THE ATTRACTION: America's sweetheart meets Australia's rabble-rouser.
BOMBS AWAY: Are you not entertained? The Crowe/Ryan union lasted long enough
to see Proof tank -- and the director blame its failure on the stars'
high-profile romance.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Ethan Hawke & Uma Thurman
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Dead Poet and the Bride.
HOOKED UP: While making the science-fiction drama Gattaca. They eventually
married and had a couple kids. Things looked fine until last year when they
broke up -- reportedly over Hawke's dalliance with a model while he was
filming Taking Lives in Montreal. (Reports now say they may reconcile.)
THE ATTRACTION: Cinematic Sirens And Dumb Choices. See Chapter Seven: "The
scruffy pretentious slacker."
BOMBS AWAY: Not a notorious flop, but pairing up for the indie flick Tape
didn't seem to boost the shoestring flick's box office take.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Angelina Jolie & Billy Bob Thornton
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Lara Croft and The Beverly Hillbilly.
HOOKED UP: After meeting on the set of their comedy Pushing Tin. Next thing
you know, he's exchanging vials of blood -- along with various other bodily
fluids -- with the beautiful but, shall we say "eccentric," Jolie.
THE ATTRACTION: She wanted a more traditional romance after having that
creepy thing with her brother.
BOMBS AWAY: Pushing Tin, about air-traffic controllers, went down in flames.
So, too, did their marriage -- although not as quickly as some predicted.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Whoopi Goldberg & Ted Danson
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: She's With Stupid.
HOOKED UP: While Danson was still married in 1992, on the set of Made In
America. Their baffling romance left audiences, critics, friends, family and
Martians shaking their respective heads and glass-encased brains in sheer
disbelief.
THE ATTRACTION: What red-blooded man could resist making Whoopi? No -- come
on, admit it.
BOMBS AWAY: The movie was certainly no hit, but what almost tanked was
Danson's career. As David Spade remarked on Saturday Night Live about
Danson -- who, at that point, was making $13 million US a year on Cheers --
"and this is what you go home to at night." Cue the Whoopi photo.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Woody Allen & Mia Farrow
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Woody and Rosemary's Babies.
HOOKED UP: Ages ago when Allen's neurotic comic routine was still relevant.
They were together for years as Farrow adopted children, including one
Soon-Yi Previn.
THE ATTRACTION: Farrow was the perfect mother for Allen's future bride.
BOMBS AWAY: Their last collaboration, funnily enough, was called Husbands
and Wives, which was released after Allen took up with Farrow's adopted
daughter, Previn.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Warren Beatty & Annette Bening
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Married ... with Children.
HOOKED UP: On the set of their mobster drama Bugsy. Bening caught the eye of
the notorious womanizer -- and somehow managed to keep him.
THE ATTRACTION: He's rich and, hey, he can't live that much longer, can he?
BOMBS AWAY: The flop Love Affair. The audiences who cared couldn't get a
day-pass from their nursing home to see it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Drew Barrymore & Tom Green
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Loony Tunes.
HOOKED UP: For no good reason.
THE ATTRACTION: Barrymore had already been married once, but found a kindred
whacky spirit in Canadian comic Green.
BOMBS AWAY: They only worked together once in the first Charlie's Angels
film. While a financial success, it was a terrible film -- and, let's face
it, had they stayed together, they would have created something truly
unthinkable: a biological offspring
Hollywood's cursed couples
By LOUIS B. HOBSON and KEVIN WILLIAMSON
Calgary Sun
The Gigli Curse has some people in Hollywood quivering in their shoes,
while others are stomping their feet.
After what happened with Gigli last year, the current wisdom in Tinseltown
is not to cast real-life couples as on-screen couples.
The Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez pairing in the romantic comedy Gigli drew
some of 2003's most scathing reviews as well as a knee-jerk reaction at the
box-office.
And it wasn't just in North America. The $75-million US comedy made a paltry
$6 million in North America, an anemic $1.2 million in foreign markets and
is struggling to find an audience even on DVD.
The film's implosion is blamed on the hype that surrounded the real-life
romance of its stars.
At first, people couldn't get enough of Affleck and Lopez from the expensive
gifts they lavished on each other to their spats and reconciliations. By the
time Gigli came out, Affleck and Lopez had reached public saturation.
It was not the first time a superstar romance upstaged the artists' films.
Think 1962 and Cleopatra.
This historical epic teamed Elizabeth Taylor, Hollywood's reigning sex
siren, with Richard Burton, one of Britain's most revered classical actors.
Within weeks of arriving on the set of Cleopatra, Taylor and Burton had a
steamier affair than the lovers they were portraying.
Their very public private antics were blamed for the flick's dismal box
office, but that didn't stop studios from building future films around them.
In the space of five years, Burton and Taylor made seven more films
together.
Even when critics praised their work in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and
The Taming of the Shrew they would also suggest it was like watching the
Burton's home movies.
Memories of these casting fiascos has Kevin Smith just a little worried over
the release Friday of his romantic comedy Jersey Girl.
It's the movie Affleck and Lopez did immediately after they'd fallen in love
on the set of Gigli.
"We considered it a real coup that Jennifer agreed to do a cameo in Jersey
Girl and it was because she and Ben were so much in love that she agreed to
do it.
"Now it looks as if we're not so lucky," admits Smith.
Kirsten Dunst says she and her boyfriend Jake Gyllenhaal "would love to work
together... It's other people who seem to have problems with us working
together. Gigli ruined it for us."
Dunst was disappointed that Cameron Crowe wouldn't even consider letting
Gyllenhaal play her love interest in Elizabethtown which shoots later this
year.
"Jake and I could totally do it, but after what happened with Gigli no one's
willing to consider pairing us..."
Michael Douglas, who is married to Catherine Zeta-Jones, says the trick for
married actors "is not to play lovers.
"Catherine and I are looking for projects we can do together in which we
aren't playing an on-screen couple."
Douglas and Zeta-Jones were both in Traffic, but Douglas says that's not
quite what they're looking for either.
"Traffic was essentially three little movies that got woven together, so it
wasn't even like Catherine and I were in the same film."
Reese Witherspoon and her husband Ryan Phillippe starred together in Cruel
Intentions.
Though it was a rewarding experience, Witherspoon says they turned down
subsequent offers to work together: "I don't think audiences want to see
real-life couples playing screen couples. It blurs the whole reality and
fantasy thing that movies are supposed to be all about."
Jennifer Aniston agrees.
She says a big-screen pairing of her with hubby Brad Pitt "is not likely to
happen. I just don't think it's a good idea for us to play screen lovers.
It's not that we couldn't do it. It's just that we shouldn't."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Tom Cruise & Nicole Kidman
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Marriage: Impossible.
HOOKED UP: While filming the racing-car flop Days of Thunder.
THE ATTRACTION: Let's forget all the popular rumours -- that the marriage
was a sham, for starters -- and assume they loved each other. Why? Because
you need love to have hate. And when Kidman remarked their split meant she
could "wear heels now," you could see just hear the love dripping from her
voice.
BOMBS AWAY: After Days of Thunder, they teamed for the 1992 dud Far and Away
and Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Madonna & Sean Penn
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Spicoli and the Virgin.
HOOKED UP: On the set of her Material Girl music video in 1984.
THE ATTRACTION: Self-styled spoiled diva meets self-styled streetwise tough
guy. The press release almost writes itself.
BOMBS AWAY: Shanghai Surprise, the 1986 flop in which Penn stopped punching
photographers long enough to see his wife's ambitions nearly K.O. his own
promising career.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Madonna & Guy Ritchie
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: The Diva and Her Director.
HOOKED UP: Through mutual friends Sting and his wife, Trudy Styler, who
produced Richie's first film, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
THE ATTRACTION: Self-styled spoiled diva meets self-styled streetwise tough
guy. The press release almost writes itself. Again.
BOMBS AWAY: Swept Away, the 2002 flop in which Richie stopped making good
movies long enough to see his wife's need to be a film star nearly K.O. his
own promising career.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Kim Basinger & Alec Baldwin
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Beauty and the Beast.
HOOKED UP: On the set of their alleged comedy The Marrying Man, in which
they clashed with studio "dwarf" -- Baldwin's words, not mine -- Jeffrey
Katzenberg (now co-founder of DreamWorks).
THE ATTRACTION: Just a stab in the dark here -- but their connection
probably wasn't purely intellectual.
BOMBS AWAY: The two paired up in the '90s for a remake of the Steve McQueen
classic The Getaway. Movie-goers did.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Russell Crowe & Meg Ryan
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: When Maximus met Sally ...
HOOKED UP: On the set of their thriller Proof Of Life, while Ryan was still
married to Dennis Quaid. She wasn't for long.
THE ATTRACTION: America's sweetheart meets Australia's rabble-rouser.
BOMBS AWAY: Are you not entertained? The Crowe/Ryan union lasted long enough
to see Proof tank -- and the director blame its failure on the stars'
high-profile romance.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Ethan Hawke & Uma Thurman
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Dead Poet and the Bride.
HOOKED UP: While making the science-fiction drama Gattaca. They eventually
married and had a couple kids. Things looked fine until last year when they
broke up -- reportedly over Hawke's dalliance with a model while he was
filming Taking Lives in Montreal. (Reports now say they may reconcile.)
THE ATTRACTION: Cinematic Sirens And Dumb Choices. See Chapter Seven: "The
scruffy pretentious slacker."
BOMBS AWAY: Not a notorious flop, but pairing up for the indie flick Tape
didn't seem to boost the shoestring flick's box office take.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Angelina Jolie & Billy Bob Thornton
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Lara Croft and The Beverly Hillbilly.
HOOKED UP: After meeting on the set of their comedy Pushing Tin. Next thing
you know, he's exchanging vials of blood -- along with various other bodily
fluids -- with the beautiful but, shall we say "eccentric," Jolie.
THE ATTRACTION: She wanted a more traditional romance after having that
creepy thing with her brother.
BOMBS AWAY: Pushing Tin, about air-traffic controllers, went down in flames.
So, too, did their marriage -- although not as quickly as some predicted.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Whoopi Goldberg & Ted Danson
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: She's With Stupid.
HOOKED UP: While Danson was still married in 1992, on the set of Made In
America. Their baffling romance left audiences, critics, friends, family and
Martians shaking their respective heads and glass-encased brains in sheer
disbelief.
THE ATTRACTION: What red-blooded man could resist making Whoopi? No -- come
on, admit it.
BOMBS AWAY: The movie was certainly no hit, but what almost tanked was
Danson's career. As David Spade remarked on Saturday Night Live about
Danson -- who, at that point, was making $13 million US a year on Cheers --
"and this is what you go home to at night." Cue the Whoopi photo.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Woody Allen & Mia Farrow
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Woody and Rosemary's Babies.
HOOKED UP: Ages ago when Allen's neurotic comic routine was still relevant.
They were together for years as Farrow adopted children, including one
Soon-Yi Previn.
THE ATTRACTION: Farrow was the perfect mother for Allen's future bride.
BOMBS AWAY: Their last collaboration, funnily enough, was called Husbands
and Wives, which was released after Allen took up with Farrow's adopted
daughter, Previn.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Warren Beatty & Annette Bening
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Married ... with Children.
HOOKED UP: On the set of their mobster drama Bugsy. Bening caught the eye of
the notorious womanizer -- and somehow managed to keep him.
THE ATTRACTION: He's rich and, hey, he can't live that much longer, can he?
BOMBS AWAY: The flop Love Affair. The audiences who cared couldn't get a
day-pass from their nursing home to see it.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
Drew Barrymore & Tom Green
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
A.K.A.: Loony Tunes.
HOOKED UP: For no good reason.
THE ATTRACTION: Barrymore had already been married once, but found a kindred
whacky spirit in Canadian comic Green.
BOMBS AWAY: They only worked together once in the first Charlie's Angels
film. While a financial success, it was a terrible film -- and, let's face
it, had they stayed together, they would have created something truly
unthinkable: a biological offspring