Jennifer Lopez to star in film adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman musical

Jennifer Lopez is set to star in a feature film adaptation of the Broadway musical Kiss of the Spider Woman. If it comes off, it will mark Lopez’s first role in a fully-fledged musical.

The film will be written and directed by Bill Condon, who has become the go-to person for musical films. Condon wrote the screenplay for 2002’s Chicago starring Renee Zelwegger and Catherine Zeta Jones; wrote and directed 2006’s Dreamgirls with Beyonce, Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy; directed 2017’s Beauty and the Beast starring Emma Watson; and, co-wrote the screenplay for 2017’s The Greatest Showman starring Hugh Jackman.

Condon won an Oscar for his screenplay for Ian McKellen led Gods and Monsters, directed both parts of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn and most recently direct Ian McKellen in The Good Liar.

Kiss of the Spider Woman features music by John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago), based on the novel by Manuel Puig and the book of the musical by Terrence McNally.

The musical is set in an Argentinian prison in 1981. Lopez would play the titular role, a fantasy woman named Aurora created by Luis Molina, a gay hairdresser serving an eight-year sentence for allegedly corrupting a minor. To escape the horrors of his imprisonment, Molina imagines movies starring Aurora as a classic silver screen diva, including a role of the spider woman, who kills her prey with a kiss. Molina’s life is upended when a Marxist, Valentin Arregui Paz, is brought into his cell, and the two form an unlikely bond.

Casting for Molina has yet to be announced. Variety reports a casting breakdown for the role as “presents as an openly queer and effeminate gay man, but may be on the non-binary/trans femme spectrum.”

Kiss of the Spider Woman was previously adapted into a film starring William Hurt as Molina – he won an Oscar for the role; and the 1993 musical which won seven Tony Awards.

The musical was most recently revived in London at the Menier Chocolate Factory in 2018 starring Samuel Barnett (Feeling Afraid As If Something Terrible Is Going To Happen, The History Boys) and Declan Bennett (Boy Out The City, Jesus Christ Superstar).

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Main photo: Jennifer Lopez, © dvsross, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons