12 Movies That Cast MAJOR Actors (Just To Die)

We've had one half of 2000s super couple Bennifer. Now here's the other.

While the rest of the films on this list come under the action, thriller and horror genres - movies in which character death is at least an expected part of the standard narrative - Jersey Girl is a dramedy. Specifically, it was Kevin Smith's failed attempt to leave behind the sophomoric humour of his View Askewniverse for more mature fare.

Smith's trump card came from tying the film to the hottest celeb couple of the day, once his buddy Ben Affleck brought along his latest paramour Jennifer Lopez. The shocking twist was then to be that audiences had come expecting to see a J-Lo vehicle only to see her die in childbirth right at the start. The film was really about Affleck's character and their daughter. (The daughter is actually the eponymous "Jersey Girl", not Jenny From The Block).

Unfortunately the Bennifer marketing strategy backfired spectacularly through a combination of the disastrous reception to their previous on screen team up, Gigli, and their subsequent real-life break up.

Studio Miramax sought to counter the idea that Bennifer was now box office poison with a radical switch in the movie's marketing strategy. Now they were essentially telling people: "Don't worry, J-Lo haters, she dies right at the start". Which does somewhat cancel out the shocking effects of casting an A-lister just to kill them.