Roadside Attractions has dropped a trailer for Kiss of the Spider Woman, Bill Condon‘s adaptation of the Broadway musical that stars Jennifer Lopez, Diego Luna and Tonatiuh. The pic, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, was picked up soon after by Roadside, Lionsgate and LD Entertainment and is set for a theatrical release October 10 in the awards-season corridor.
The stage musical, which was based on Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel that was turned into the 1985 movie starring Raul Julia and William Hurt, is set in military-run 1983 Argentina and centers on a pair of prison cellmates. Molina (Tonatiuh), a gay window dresser jailed for indecency, keeps up the spirts of political prisoner Valentin (Luna) by telling tales about his favorite musical actress, Ingrid Luna. The trailer shows off the stark difference between the prison and Luna’s Old Hollywood fantasy world as the two men begin to fall in love.
Lopez plays Luna, who comes alive in Luis’ tales via the music of John Kander and Fred Ebb from the Broadway show (the book was by Terrence McNally). “I had 10 musical numbers (in the movie),” Lopez told Deadline of the production. “It’s brutal, it’s an indie film, we didn’t have time that most movie musicals have.”
Condon, who directed the hit movie adaptation Dreamgirls and Beauty and the Beast and wrote the script for Chicago, wrote and directed Spider Woman, an Artists Equity production, and shot it like an MGM musical movie of old: in long, single takes. It was the splashiest title this year in Park City, and Deadline broke the news of the North American rights deal made be Roadside, Lionsgate and LD.
Last fall, Roadside acquired Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl out of the Toronto Film Festival and ramped up awards-season buzz for its lead star Pamela Anderson, so there is a formula here.
Check out the trailer above.
