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Ben Affleck has had his fair share of high paychecks, but the one for Gigli never felt fitting.

“Look, I’ve been in movies like Gigli, that’s a famous example. I got a big cash payday for that, the actor, 52, said in an interview with ᴅᴇᴀᴅline published on Tuesday, November 12. “Well, it doesn’t feel right in retrospect because they lost money.”

Affleck starred in the 2003 rom-com alongside now-estranged wife, Jennifer Lopez. The film earned a mere $7.2 million at the worldwide box office against a reported budget of more than $75 million. Not only did Gigli underperform at the box office, but it received a series of negative reviews from the critics.

“It wasn’t the biggest money-losing movie in history even though it was the most famous bomb in history, perhaps,” Affleck continued. “Nonetheless, that doesn’t sit right with me. But it also doesn’t sit right with people when they go, wait a minute, we all sacrificed to be committed to this. And then the old story about the $10 million movie that’s made $200 million and nobody’s seen a nickel.”

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While Affleck is uncomfortable with the paycheck he received from Gigli, he shared that he wants to make sure “fairness” is involved with him and pal Matt Damon’s production company Artists Equity.

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck in ‘Gigli’ Cover Images

“That’s a basic fundamental principle that Matt and I are really drawn to, to create a fair deal for everybody that they can live with in success, in failure, or anywhere along the spectrum,” he explained. “The ancillary benefit of that, for a lot of us who care about and do this, the dirty little secret is a lot of us would do it for free. But we also don’t want to be taken advantage of for that. It’s a beautiful, wonderful, fortunate way to make a living.”

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Affleck and Damon, 54, founded Artists Equity in November 2022. The duo’s first project under the conglomerate was their film Air. They also worked on Lopez’s music documentary film, The Greatest Love Story Never Told, and the drama Small Things Like These starring Cillian Murphy. Artists Equity also currently has the sequel for Affleck’s film The Accountant in addition to two projects starring Lopez, 55, in the works.

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Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck‘s relationship inspired her 2002 hit “Dear Ben,” and their romance provided even more inspiration when it was rekindled two decades later. The couple were first linked in the early 2000s, with Lopez confirming their engagement to Diane Sawyer in November 2002. The twosome eventually called off their wedding in early […]

While the film has a lot of happy memories — like connecting him with Lopez — Affleck has been candid over the years about the lessons he learned from Gigli.

“The truth about that movie and what it taught me was how much everything around a movie sort of dictates the way people see it. But for being a movie that’s such a famous bomb and a disaster, very few people actually saw the movie,” he said to Entertainment Weekly in January 2022. “It doesn’t work, by the way. It’s a sort of horse’s head in a cow’s body. And the studio at the time, because I had begun having this relationship with Jennifer Lopez, which was selling a lot of magazines and appeared to generate a lot of enthusiasm, they just predictably latched onto, ‘They want a romantic comedy. They want the two of them together. More of that!’”