Robert Elswit

Godfather of actor Jake Gyllenhaal.

[on Gigli (2003)] Nobody sets out to make a bad movie. Marty Brest [Martin Brest] is one of the smartest, funniest, most intelligent, strange, neurotic human beings I've ever worked with, and I really loved it. What he can't do is write. He made a horrible mistake. He tried to write his own movie. There are some people whose imaginative skills are all about taking a screenplay and working it into something else, and that's Marty Brest. Marty decided to write this thing himself, and somehow he talked Joe Roth and all those guys over at Sony into doing it. It was just not a film. And you know what? Part of it was the personal relationships involved. Ben [Ben Affleck] fell in love with what's-her-name... [Jennifer Lopez] the whole thing was misshapen from the very beginning. I don't know if it ever would've worked out, but I think Marty Brest is not a screenwriter. He's a really interesting and compelling director and a lot of fun to be on the set with. He's a complicated guy. He does not get along with studio executives. He's not a great partner. When his films make money for his partners, they put up with it. And as soon as they didn't, he couldn't buy a job. He hasn't worked since. His work was held to pretty high standards, but his personal relationships are kind of what doomed him. His lack of charm and inability to compromise and interact with studio executives, particularly on a film that cost that much money, made things complicated. He was probably the most combative director I've ever worked with when it came to studio people. Not with the crew, or me, or anyone else, but when it came to his relationship with the people at Sony, he was a nightmare. But if the film had made $400 million, there would've been another one a year later.[2014]