J.Lo And Ben Affleck Turned Kevin Smith Off Big-Budget Films

The Sun caught up with Kevin Smith in a Q&A and asked the ‘Clerks II’ director what was it that made him change from making big budget films with Jennifer Lopez to doing indie movies again. “Making a flick with J.Lo,” Smith responded. “I was sitting on ‘Jersey Girl’, which had a budget of $35million, and I was like: ‘Why does this movie have to be this expensive? I just want to tell a simple story.’ And it was the star salaries – Ben was $10 million, Jen was $4 million. That’s when I knew that next time around I wanted to make a movie with no stars in it, because they look more like real people and aren’t very expensive. I wanted to tell my story without having to worry about demographics or the market or how ‘Gigli’ performed. I like it when the flick becomes the star, when the story that you’re telling in the movie becomes the front and center. It’s so disheartening when you’re on a movie like ‘Jersey Girl’ and you spend two years of your life trying to tell a story and all people want to know is ‘did you see the big pink diamond ring?’”