“Hitch” director Andy Tennant marked the 20th anniversary of the romantic-comedy with a new Business Insider interview in which he opened up about clashing with star Will Smith. As the filmmaker put it: “I didn’t want cheap jokes, but he didn’t trust me.”
“We had our difficulties,” Tennant said of his relationship with Smith. “The movie I wanted to make and the movie Will wanted to make, neither one of those movies is as good as the movie we made together. It was a battle. [Smith’s wife] Jada [Pinkett Smith] was a big help. She kind of seconded some of my instincts. There was a time during prep when I was pushing back on a lot of crazy shit that was happening.”
“Hitch” starred Smith as a professional date doctor who helps teach men how to impress women, but he’s shocked to discover that his usual tricks and advice don’t work on a columnist (Eva Mendes) he falls hard for. The supporting cast included Kevin James and Amber Valletta. “Hitch” was a critical favorite and grossed $371.6 million worldwide to become the tenth-highest-grossing film of 2005.
Tennant told Business Insider that he sparred with Smith during the development of “Hitch” over “crazy story ideas,” adding: “There was a draft that Will brought in that I was not a fan of. I finally told the studio that I was more afraid of Will making that version of the movie than I was about them firing me. Because I knew they were right on the edge of firing me before we even began shooting. And to Will’s credit, we didn’t go with that draft. I don’t think I was ever in anyone’s favor.”
“There was a lot of fear doing a big, expensive romantic comedy with Will,” he continued. “It was fraught with peril. Will tried to back out three days before we started shooting. He wanted to shut down and work on it some more. It was madness.”
Despite the clashes, “Hitch” was a box office success and Tennant “submitted a proposal for a sequel.” But “Hitch 2” never got made in the aftermath of the first movie’s global success, a surprise given Smith’s franchise bonafides.
“But I guess Will is developing a ‘Hitch’ sequel without me,” Tennant revealed. “I just found out about it three months ago. I had a really good idea for a sequel, and I was talking to an executive at Sony, and he said Will’s production company is developing a sequel. Hey, that’s Hollywood.”
“I don’t have anything against Will,” he continued. “He hired me to make this movie. It was not an easy job for anybody, but we went around the world with the movie. Even the hard times he’d always say, ‘Wait until the junket. We’re gonna go around the world with this’ — and we did, and it was great. It was the most amazing trip I had ever been on. And when it was over, my time with Will was over. That was it. And I have never heard from him since.”
Variety has reached out to Smith’s representative for comment. Head over to Business Insider’s website to read Tennant’s interview in its entirety.
