Hitch starred Will Smith as a professional matchmaker & was a box office hit, but the director says tensions were high during production.

Hitch celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, but director Andy Tennant told Business Insider that it took a lot of effort to bring the Will Smith romantic comedy blockbuster to the big screen. Tennant and Smith didn’t always agree, and the star even tried to drop out of the movie just three days before shooting was slated to begin.

“We had our difficulties,” Tennant said. “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.”

He continued, “There was a lot of fear doing a big, expensive romantic comedy with Will. 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.” Hitch starred Smith as a professional matchmaker who teaches men how to woo women. However, he’s shocked to find that his game doesn’t work on the object of his affection. The film also starred Eva Mendes, Kevin James, and Amber Valletta.

Tennant and Smith butted heads from the beginning during the development of the script. “There was a draft that Will brought in that I was not a fan of,” he explained. “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.“

The film was a big success, grossing over $370 million worldwide. Although Tennant had ideas for a sequel 20 years ago, it never got made, but he recently found out that Smith is working on a Hitch sequel without him. “But I guess Will is developing a Hitch sequel without me,” Tennant said. “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.“

That said, Tennant added that he doesn’t have anything against Smith. “He hired me to make this movie. It was not an easy job for anybody, but we went around the world with the movie,” he said. “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.“