Jennifer Lopez’s Kiss of the Spider Woman lands distributors with Lionsgate, Roadside Attractions and LD Entertainment

Jennifer Lopez stars in an adaptation of the famous play, Kiss of the Spider Woman, which premiered at Sundance last month. Our Chris Bumbray got to see it and said in his review, “While the premise certainly sounds heavy, Condon infused the film with a lot of Hollywood flash and sizzle. However, the songs and musical numbers are confined to the film within the film, making this more realistic as far as big-screen musicals go. It’s precisely the right way to film it, as the power of the story, which reflects grim, real-world events, isn’t diluted. It’ll be interesting to see if a major studio picks up the movie, as it feels fairly commercial, even if, at its soul, it is a desperately sad story that doesn’t feel far removed from events that still happen all over the world forty years after the story is set.”

Deadline is now reporting that the movie musical did get picked up by distributors, but not necessarily one of the bigger Hollywood studios. Lionsgate, Roadside Attractions and LD Entertainment landed the deal for the rights to the Jennifer Lopez/Diego Luna adaptation. The studios snatched up the film as it became the film festival’s most buzzed-about movie this year. According to their sources, it took a lot for this deal to come together, as the net on the film was in the low $30 million range. Stuart Ford’s AGC was in charge of the foreign sales at the European Film Market. Meanwhile, WME and CAA Media Finance had both represented the U.S. rights on the movie.

The Artists Equity production is based on the book by Terrence McNally with John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Broadway songs and the synopsis reads, “During the last months of The Dirty War in Argentina, a political prisoner, Valentin (Diego Luna), and a trans prisoner, Molina (Tonatiuh), are forced to share a cell. Despite their differences, the two become friends. However, unbeknownst to Valentin, the warden is forcing Molina to spy on his cellmate, a fact complicated by their growing intimacy.”

Kiss of the Spider Woman has a fascinating legacy that spans literature, cinema, and the stage. Originally written as a novel by Manual Puig, it was turned into a taboo-bursting 1985 film, which won star William Hurt an Oscar. Considered boundary-pushing in its frank depiction of homosexuality, it was later turned into a Tony-award-winning musical. Now it’s getting a lavish movie musical directed by Bill Condon. In addition to movies like Gods and Monsters, Condon also directed one of the better stage-to-screen adaptations, Dreamgirls, and does an excellent job with a film that has the grit and soul of the 1985 movie and the flash and spectacle of the play.

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