Jennifer Lopez will be playing Aurora, the titular Spider Woman, in Bill Condon’s Broadway adaptation.
Musicals seem to be having a bit of a moment, despite studios trying to hide the songs in their trailers for films like Wonka and Mean Girls. Jon M Chu is busy working on his adaptation of Wicked and Blitz Bazawule’s The Color Purple is garnering rave reviews ahead of the awards season. And more are on the way, it seems…
Variety reports that Jennifer Lopez has signed on for Bill Condon’s film adaptation of Kiss Of The Spider Woman, which premiered on Broadway in 1993. It’s based on a novel by Manuel Puig and 1985 independent film adaptation of the novel. John Kander and Fred Ebb were in charge of the music.
Lopez is reportedly playing the role of Aurora, the titular Spider Woman. The story is set in an Argentinian prison in 1981. A man, Molina, is serving a sentence for allegedly corrupting a minor. Molina, a gay hairdresser, imagines Aurora as a movie star in his dreams, including as a spider woman who kills her prey with a kiss.
Podcast: The Good Liar (2019) and more, with director Bill Condon
The film is looking to begin rehearsals in February and filming in April. Variety also reports that the production is currently scouting for an unknown actor for the role of Molina which “presents as an openly queer and effeminate gay man, but may be on the non-binary/trans femme spectrum.”
Condon is no stranger to making movie musicals. He helmed 2006’s Oscar-winning Dreamgirls and Disney’s live-action remake of Beauty And The Beast. Condon also co-wrote the script for The Greatest Showman and directed the last two Twilight movies.
Lopez was last seen in Netflix’s The Mother, but the singer-turned-actress, who is gearing to release a new album early next year, garnered Oscar buzz for her turn in Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers. Interestingly, despite her musical talents, Lopez has never appeared in a movie musical. She did play singer Selena Quintanilla-Pérez in the 1997 biopic, titled Selena, but Kiss Of The Spider-Woman would be her first proper musical. As well as starring, JLo will also be executive producing the film.
