The New York Times and Kevin Smith butted heads last week, as the Times not only misquoted the writer/director saying he wasn't pleased with the chemistry of his leading stars, but also decided to tell the entire world that Jennifer Lopez actually dies in the first half-hour of his upcoming film, Jersey Girl. In response, Smith rips the article apart piece by piece on his web site, and rightly so. He does acknowledge the nice upside to this incident, saying, "Now, in the post-"Gigli" climate, marketing the flick as a Ben and Jen movie is the last thing Miramax wants to do - which is cool by me, as I always felt the movie should be sold as what it is: a father/daughter relationship film. That's largely what the flick's about, so why not sell it honestly?" A good question, indeed.


On the other hand, Smith also explains his frustration with how the marketing was forced to shift out of necessity not because it's the right thing to do. "It's just a shame that that particular marketing decision was arrived at under the current circumstances. Because now, thanks to the voracious press machine, the news of Jen's character's death early in the film has become common knowledge." There's certainly no arguing with this - what a shame. Think about what a great surprise the death would have been to audiences expecting to see an entire movie featuring both Affleck and Lopez, only to have one of the duo knocked off.

This whole incident kind of reminds me of the 1996 thriller Executive Decision, in which Steven Seagal dies in the first twenty minutes even though he was at the center of the film's marketing campaign. It turns out Roger Ebert spoiled that surprise in his review (to the dismay of many readers), but not having heard of the surprise death in advance, it was a really great and unexpected moment for me. Sadly, it seems that just about everyone who sits down to watch Jersey Girl will be anticipating Lopez's exit and the surprise-factor will be lost. This is yet another example of the media wrecking a film for the public, or at least not making it any better. Perhaps instead of always digging into pointless crap and spoiling movies, the NY Times should spend more time reporting how many U.S. soldiers are being killed in Iraq every day.

Posted August 20, 2003 | link