“Hitch” director says Will Smith wanted to back out of rom-com 3 days before filming started: 'It was madness'

Hitch is one of the smoothest, most successful romantic comedies of the 2000s, which you'd never believe if you heard the film's behind-the-scenes story.

Director Andy Tennant is finally telling that story as the film approaches its 20th anniversary. "There was a lot of fear doing a big, expensive romantic comedy with [star Will Smith]," the filmmaker behind another gold standard of aughts rom-coms, Sweet Home Alabama, recently told Business Insider.

Though it was Smith's idea to take a swing at his first rom-com, Tennant said the production was "fraught with peril" from the start. Smith even "tried to back out three days before we started shooting. He wanted to shut down and work on it some more. It was madness... There were some debates but there were things that turned out really funny. You keep all the really fun stuff, you have a good movie. But it was a wild ride."

Related: Why Hitch is the greatest rom-com of all time: Opinion

Smith had already made the most towering successes of his career by the mid-2000s including Men in Black, Ali, and Bad Boys. He was riding high on his A-list status and had never starred in anything close to a romantic comedy. So why start then?

After being told by the studio that "romantic comedies with Black leads don't travel well overseas," Will took it as a challenge, Tennant noted. Will the businessman wanted to break that barrier and expand his brand.

Break that barrier he did, as Hitch earned over $370 million globally (including a whopping $192 million from the international box office) on its $70,000 budget. But the road to success was paved with trials and tribulations.

"We had our difficulties," Tennant said, recalling that Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, "was a big help" in moving things forward, because "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."

One such battle involved not having a location to shoot the pivotal doorstep scene between Smith and costar Kevin James — which, by the way, was written the day it was shot.

"We didn't have a location to shoot this. We didn't have permission. We had nothing," Tennant remembered. "Will and I went to a brownstone we liked, walked up to the door, knocked on the door to see if we could get permission to shoot there, and it turned out to be Sarah Jessica Parker's house. So she was like, 'Hi!' And we were like, 'Hi, can we shoot on your doorstep?' And she was like, 'Ah, yeah.'"

Related: Hitch: Alexander Skarsgård, Sarah Jessica Parker, and 3 other things you didn't know

"I swear to god, when we wrapped that movie, I called my wife and said, 'I've just ruined my career, and I've ruined Will Smith's career,'" Tennant said. After wrapping and turning over the footage to his editors, Tennant expected the working cut to be a bomb, but when they sent the first draft of Hitch over, "They said, 'You're not going to believe this, this movie is hilarious... I think I started crying."

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Hitch's success surprised Tennant at the time, and its enduring popularity is even more of a marvel. Entertainment Weekly coronated the film the greatest rom-com of all time in 2020. Co-star Eva Mendes indicated her openness to being part of a sequel the same year, saying, "You know what? It's time for a Hitch 2... Will, let's do this. Hitch 2."

Smith has not disclosed talks of a Hitch sequel, but Tennant said he recently discovered that "Will is developing a Hitch sequel without me." The end of the film depicts Smith's character's blissful wedding to Mendes', meaning the choices for a Hitch 2 jumping-off point are limitless. Smith is also celebrated for his successful franchises like Bad Boys and Men in Black, which also bodes well for a Hitch sequel.

But Tennant said that the film's whirlwind international press tour marked the end for him. "When it was over, my time with Will was over. That was it," the director said. "And I have never heard from him since."

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