The movie Ben Affleck wants to delete from history: “the only one that haunts me”
Ben Affleck is a mix of contradictions. He’s a movie star whose only Oscars are for screenwriting and producing. He’s found success in nearly every genre, and yet he keeps returning to The Accountant. And no matter how much acclaim he earns, he is still willing to put it all behind him and appear in movies like Jennifer Lopez’s ode to herself, This is Me… Now.
When it comes to his worst films of all time, that last one is a top contender. A vanity project that failed to live up to even the lowest of expectations, it raised all the wrong questions about Affleck’s career, not to mention Lopez’s. Still, it wasn’t their worst film together. In 2003, at the height of their first stint as a paparazzi-hungry couple, they made the infamous Gigli, a romantic crime comedy that cost $75.6 million, made $7.2m at the box office, and ended its director’s career. This is particularly shocking given that the filmmaker in question, Martin Brest, had made such hits as Beverly Hills Cop, Midnight Run, and Scent of a Woman, the latter of which earned him two Oscar nominations.
However, despite being frequently cited as one of the worst movies ever made, Gigli is not the movie that Affleck wishes had never happened. That distinction falls to a film that he directed rather than acted in. In fact, it was the first movie he ever helmed, a short film called I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meathook, and Now I Have a Three Picture Deal at Disney. Take a five-second break to recover from that title, if you must.
Released in some capacity in 1993, it was in the work while Affleck was writing the script for Good Will Hunting. One of them would win him an Oscar. I Killed My Lesbian Wife (etc) gives most of its plot away in the title. It is, after all, a mere 13 minutes long. Starring Jay Lacopo, who also penned the script, it follows a psychotic filmmaker who is auditioning female actors for the lead role in his upcoming Disney movie while his wife, as the title suggests, is hanging from a meathook. Classy stuff.
In a 2010 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Affleck sounded mortified by the mere mention of it. “It’s horrible,” he said. “It’s atrocious”.
At the time, he explained, he knew he wanted to be a director and was making short films to try to get his career going. “This is the only one that haunts me,” he said. “I’m not proud of it. It looks like it was made by someone who has no prospects, no promise.” If you’d like to judge it for yourself, there is a DVD release of Affleck’s The Town that includes this first directorial effort in its bonus features.
Considering that Affleck’s best work has been behind the scenes, whether as the writer of Good Will Hunting or the director of Gone Baby Gone, it’s surprising that this should also be the capacity in which he made his very worst film. It is no small thing to skip over a movie that is widely considered to be one of the worst ever made (Gigli) in favour of one that almost no one has heard of, but then again, it’s pretty hard to defend a film called I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meathook, and Now I Have a Three Picture Deal at Disney. It is to Affleck’s credit that he doesn’t even try.
