Premiering next week at Sundance.

Kiss of the Spider Woman Movie Musical, Starring Jennifer Lopez, Will Premiere at Sundance Film Festival

The movie musical adaptation of Broadway's Kiss of the Spider Woman will make its world premiere at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, set to be held in Park City, Utah, January 23–February 2, 2025. Scheduling of the film's screening—which will be in-person only—has not yet been announced.

As previously announced, the screen version of John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Terrence McNally's 1992 musical is coming to the screen written and directed by Bill Condon (Dreamgirls). Film star and recording artist Jennifer Lopez is starring in the title role, with Tonatiuh as Luis Molina and Diego Luna as Valentin Arregui. According to Sundance's listing for the film, the cast also includes Broadway alum Josefina Scaglione (West Side Story), Bruno Bichir, and Aline Mayagoitia. The listing also reveals that the film will have runtime of 128 minutes, while describing Condon's work as marrying "a textually rich historical and political drama with the flashy technicolor extravagance of an old Hollywood musical."

Based on Manuel Puig's 1976 novel, Kiss of the Spider Woman centers on a pair of cellmates in an Argentine prison. Valentin is a political revolutionary while Molina is a gay window dresser who takes care of him by telling him the stories of his favorite films, many of which star his favorite movie star of all, Aurora. But the one story he fears telling is Aurora's greatest role: The Spider Woman.

The novel was adapted by Puig himself into a 1983 stage play, and then into an Academy Award-winning film in 1985 starring Broadway favorite Raúl Juliá. John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Terrence McNally's stage musical version expanded the story somewhat, making Aurora a character who appears in a number of fantasy sequences. Chita Rivera created the role and won a Tony Award for her performance, later succeeded by Vanessa Williams in her Broadway debut.

The musical has been rumored to be making a return for some time in some form. A reading was held in 2015 with Audra McDonald, Alan Cumming, and Steven Pasquale. More recently, Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center was poised to stage a new revival as part of its Broadway Center Stage season, but it was ultimately pulled and replaced with the staging of Spamalot that subsequently transferred to Broadway. At the time, Kennedy Center representatives cited casting complications due to plans for a Broadway revival. A Broadway return for the work has yet to materialize.

Though she is also a recording artist and self-produced a musical film titled This Is Me... Now: A Love Story that was released earlier this year, Spider Woman will be Lopez's debut in a musical theatre piece. She was previously set to star in a live TV production of Bye Bye Birdie for NBC, though that was ultimately thwarted due to scheduling conflicts. As early as 2016, she was eager to have a musical written for her by Hamilton writer Lin-Manuel Miranda. Lopez also has a development deal with Concord, whose Concord Theatricals controls licensing rights for Kiss of the Spider Woman. It's unclear if the upcoming film is a part of that partnership. One of Lopez's first feature films is 1997's Selena, which while not expressly a musical, featured the singer-songwriter lip-syncing as late Mexican pop star Selena Quintanilla-Pérez.

Barry Josephson, Tom Kirdahy, and Greg Yolen are producing with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon for Artists Equity, the film's studio and lead producer. Michael Joe, Danie Bernfeld, and Kevin Halloran are executive producing for Artists Equity along with Condon for 1000 Eyes, Lopez and Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas for Nuyorican Productions, and D. Matt Geller for Josephson Entertainment. Luna, Pamela Thur, Sam Weisman, Daniel Weisman, and Margaux Weisman are also executive producing.

They lost me with the casting of J-Lo.

So... Any plans for a 4K UHD BD release of the 1985 movie?

She can sing and dance, she's a larger than life persona, she's Latina. I think the casting here is just fine. It's not like JLo can't act.

Criterion has it.

I'm not saying she's miscast as much as I don't care for her as an actress or person and putting her in something means I will most likely avoid it. If this gets really good reviews, I may give it a chance as I did enjoy the 1985 movie.

Are you sure? I only found it on Blu-ray, and it wasn't even a Criterion release.

They have the rights, there hasn't been a release yet. It is on their channel with Criterion and Janus logos.

Oh, okay. I misunderstood you earlier.

I don't watch every Jennifer Lopez movie. Aside from the baggage she has in her personal life, I still think she's a good actress and a decent singer. I don't think she's poison. I do like some musicals, so I might be interested in this when I see a trailer.

A few mixed reviews: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/kis...der_woman_2025

Yeah, it looks like this was a perfect part for JLo.

This is the role she was born to play!

I got an email the other day from Fandango for $15 off a ticket including the service fee, so I went ahead and got a ticket for 69 cents.

The promo code was SPIDERWOMAN, but I'm sure it's no longer valid now.

Movie is getting decent reviews, but it's not yet certified fresh. I'm sure this movie will rack up the Golden Globe nominations in the Musical category. If Lopez gets a nom or wins an award, I hope it's because she is legit that good and not because she's J-Lo and the academy/press people feel she's a good presence for awards season.

I just got back from seeing it. First and foremost, Lopez is not the star of this movie. She actually has a minor supporting role. I would say she’s probably in 35% of the movie.

I’ll be blunt, if you don’t like musicals and aren’t a fan of movies with LGBTQ themes, this is not for you. The star of this movie Tanutiah and he plays a gay man in early 1980s Argentina during their civil war. Meets Diego Luna in jail and ends up talking about his love for old Hollywood musicals and Lopez is featured in those fantasy sequences. I enjoyed the sequences, they were bright, colorful and really had the old school look. Lopez was fine. Nothing award worthy in my opinion. The tone is kind of all over the place. Light, whimsical and them dark. Tanutiah was good and sang well, but honestly I don’t remember any of the songs.

I’d give it 2.5 stars out of and maybe a 6.5 out of 10. Not something I’ll remember or ever rewatch.

I take it you never saw the 1985 Oscsr winning Drama. Because that is exactly the plot of the film.

No, I never saw it. I was also aware that Vanessa Williams did a version of it on Broadway playing Lopez’s part.

I'll see this movie in the next day or two, but I'd be more interested if they could have carved out a Dolby screen for one of the showings

I hope this whole movie's existence isn't to try and get Jennifer Lopez a Supporting Actress Oscar.

I've never seen the 1985 film and was only very generally familiar with the story. I also am a fan of a good musical.

So that means I had no story expectations, and I like singing and dancing. While I mostly liked the prison story in this film the musical numbers were just like Kryptonite. Admittedly. other than in Out of Sight, I'm not at all a fan of Jennifer Lopez, and those scenes never remotely worked for me; I was just enduring waiting for them to be over. Given that those scenes were important to the theme that's probably not a good thing.

One thing this movie did was make me want really want to watch the Bill Hurt/Raul Julia/Sonia Braga version without all of the Lopez song and dance numbers.

My gf dragged me to this. Not my thing, but she enjoyed it

She's not even going to get nominated.