Oscar-winner Bill Condon has finished his long-nurtured film of the Kander-and-Ebb musical Kiss of the Spider Woman, with Jennifer Lopez playing both faded movie goddess Aurora and the lethal Spider Woman who haunts a political prisoner’s imagination. The picture re-interprets the 1993 Tony-winning stage show that itself sprang from Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel.
Filmed at Kearny, New Jersey’s Basin Studios on a reported $30 million budget, the project was financed independently by Lopez’s Nuyorican Productions alongside Artists Equity and Mohari Media. Producers Barry Josephson, Tom Kirdahy and Greg Yolen later struck a distribution pact with Lionsgate, Roadside Attractions and LD Entertainment that places the U.S. theatrical bow on 10 October 2025, followed by an IMAX-supported rollout.
Condon told festival journalists he leaned into “heightened fantasy” to offset the film’s Argentine prison reality, praising Lopez for supplying “old-Hollywood flamboyance and raw feeling.” The movie premiered at Sundance on 26 January to a prolonged standing ovation. Lopez, visibly emotional, said, “I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life,” recalling childhood viewings of West Side Story with her mother that inspired her musical ambitions.
Early reviews praised her star turn while noting tension between Condon’s lavish numbers and the narrative’s themes of repression and queer identity. Analysts have compared the project to the director’s Oscar-winning Chicago, suggesting a potential awards-season run if the finished cut sustains festival buzz.
A teaser released in June, backed by new Kander & Ebb orchestrations, confirmed a soundtrack vinyl and hinted at an early-2026 streaming window following the theatrical play. International buyers reportedly entered talks after positive Sundance word-of-mouth, with multiple language dubs being prepared to broaden the musical’s global reach.
