Jennifer Lopez Funded Her Own Movie, And I Wish I Loved Myself That Much

Jennifer Lopez is one of the most fascinating celebrities we’ve got. 

This is a statement I’ve always thought to be true, but never more so than when I got my fangirl self up at 6am to tune into the global press conference for This Is Me… Now. In case you missed it, This Is Me… Now is JLo’s new film which is kind of also a visual album but one that is produced to the level of a Marvel movie. I had the honour of watching a screener of the film before its release and I had a lot of questions so of course I was going to dial in to see what she had to say about it all.

I tune into the conference and am greeted by this vision:

The hat. The skivvy. The belt. The pony. No notes. 

Jennifer is here with the director of This Is Me… Now, Dave Meyers, who kinda threw JLo under the bus a bit in this interview by oversharing some big details.

Firstly he confirmed that the emotional break-up scenes in the film are 100% inspired by the “pain” she felt from her IRL breakup with Ben Affleck. In particular, the scenes shot in the ‘heart factory’ were a representation of her broken ticker after they ended their engagement three days before their wedding. 

Those scenes in the movie are super intense. You literally see JLo throwing herself across a factory to mend a gigantic metal heart as it’s exploding. Ben, you did her dirty in that breakup. 

Another element that darling Dave exposed during the press conference was that Jennifer Lopez funded this massive movie project herself. 

He said that she had developed the concept for the film and was shopping it around to production houses to see who wanted to make it and fund the project. But no one wanted a bar of it. 

My thought is that no one fully understood what was going on with this film (which I can sympathise with because trying to describe this movie is near-on impossible). Rather than thinking, okay, perhaps we let this project go – it’s just not meant to be etc. JLo did what only JLo could have done: She said “fuck it, I’m gonna fund it myself,” and paid for the whole thing.

Obviously, you have to be a certain celebrity-level of wealth to be able to do that sort of thing, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that Jennifer Lopez clearly really backs herself. To the degree that she would spend millions to share her love story with the world. 

I wish I had that level of self-confidence.

Imagine that, dropping millions of dollars to dramatise your break up and get back together narrative for the big screen. Hiring a production team, script writers, choreographers, editors, directors, actors, marketing teams, runners, makeup artists, costume designers, THE LOT straight out of your own bank account. All so you could make one giant feature film-length music video of love songs you wrote to yourself and Ben Affleck. Imagine. 

Just adding This Is Me… Now to the pile of evidence proving Jennifer Lopez to be the most fascinating celebrity we’ve got. 

You can watch This Is Me… Now on Prime Video now. 

Image credit: Getty + Punkee