The time Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck did a movie together… and hated every se…see more

We need to talk about the time Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock did a movie together.

For those who don’t live and breathe ’90s cinema, I’m talking about the 1999 rom-com, Forces of Nature.

In the film, Ben plays a man named Ben. Enough said.

Sandra plays a slightly more creatively named woman Sarah. On their way to Savannah, their plane has a freak accident before takeoff so the two strangers decide to band together to get there because, well… it’s a rom-com.

But much like their fateful plane, Forces of Nature didn’t quite take off as expected.

First of all, it didn’t seem like the film’s stars, who played love interests, particularly, well… liked each other.

Each star spent the publicity tour bemoaning the other one.

In a 1999 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Bullock complained about her co-star’s flakiness.

“Ben can never show up anywhere on time. When he’s with you he gives you so much attention you feel like a queen, so when he says I’ll call you for dinner, and you don’t hear from him, you feel like, ‘What did I do wrong?’,” Sandra said.

“Since he does it to everyone, you can’t take it personally. But then if you don’t call him back right away when he calls, he goes nuts, leaving messages like, ‘Why didn’t you call me back, I called you an hour ago, why don’t you call me BACK?”‘

In the same interview, Affleck listed his pet peeves about Bullock.

“I ask her questions about her life, and she’s like, ‘My one male friend said this.’ No one has a name. I ask her, who are you going to dinner with? ‘Just some friends, you don’t know them.’ And, of course, I DO know them.”

The actor went on to suggest that Sandra spoke so much that she should come with a personal mute button. “She’s just WAA WAA in your ear all the time,” Affleck actually said aloud.

“She’d make a great wife… for a deaf man.”

Oh.

Okay.

Wow.

Charming stuff.

But don’t worry, Bullock got her sweet revenge on ol’ Benny boy.

“Sandra Bullock recently complained that her co-star Ben Affleck had smelly breath,” the Telegraph wrote at the time.

According to The Guardian, Affleck suffered from halitosis which led his romantic co-star Bullock to give him a box of breath mints before their kissing scenes in the 1999 rom-com.

Tensions aside, even the poster is just a bit odd, right??

In a year that introduced us to some of the greatest movies of all time, Forces of Nature was… not one of them.

The film was universally panned and proved to be both a critical and commercial flop. For a budget of $75 million, it only made a $93.9 million return at the box office.

Considering the combined star power of Bullock and Affleck’s fame at this time, the movie was a predicted blockbuster but the overall response was one of confusion.

Rotten Tomatoes described the main flaw being “a distinct lack of chemistry between Ben Affleck and Sandra Bullock, coupled with a screwball sensibility that’s a touch too screwy.”

That being said, the film does have a cult following for those who appreciated the charming-albeit-chaotic storyline and the energy between the two leads.

There’s a fine line between love and hate, and that line might just be this movie.

Whether these two genuinely liked or loathed each other, it’s worth noting Bullock and Affleck haven’t worked together on a movie since. Just saying!