Let’s set the scene here. Ahead of Kiss of the Spider Woman’s premiere at Sundance, its director, Bill Condon spoke at length about working with Jennifer Lopez on this musical remake. The 1985 film and 1992 Broadway musical are big and sultry, and the director of the adaptation on the 2025 movie schedule has teased that his project will harken back to MGM-style musicals. There’s a lot of lavish Old Hollywood and vintage movie energy going on here that JLo will likely thrive in. So, yeah, it makes sense that Condon said this actress was “born in the wrong time.”
Bill Condon is bringing Kiss of the Spider Woman back 40 years after the film starring William Hurt came out. The new movie will be both a “vibrant movie musical” and “prison drama” according to Deadline, and Lopez will play Aurora, the woman Luis Molina dreams of when he’s stuck in prison. During an interview with the aforementioned outlet, journalist Mike Fleming Jr. noted that this film is “the perfect vehicle for [JLo]by turning her loose in a full-blown MGM throwback musical.”
To that point, Condon said both he and the Hustlers star were probably born in the wrong time, because she would have “flourished in the old studio system.” He then gave more of an explanation as to why, saying:
It seems so obvious, doesn’t it? I do think having gotten to work with her in this idiom, that she is one of those people, and sometimes I think I might be too, who was born in the wrong time. The extraordinary talent that she has, she would have so flourished in the old studio system. This would be the 18th movie like this that she’d made, and it wouldn’t have happened so far into her career. It’s heartbreaking in a way to me because I think it does open up all these possibilities, and I hope she’s able to do many more of these, but it should have happened much earlier.
Jennifer Lopez is an icon and a triple threat. JLo’s best movies, like Out of Sight and Hustles, prove her power as a dramatic actor. Meanwhile, her decades-long music career shows off how incredible she is at signing and dancing. Sadly, film opportunities that allow her to showcase all those skills simultaneously don’t come around often these days.
While I love a JLo rom-com, I’ve been dying to see her really put all her skills to the test in a big, lavish musical, and if she had been born way before she was, she might have been an Old Hollywood star. So, I can totally see where her director is coming from, and I too, would like to see Jennifer Lopez in 18 big movie musicals.
However, I’m also happy she was born exactly when she was because it means we get to witness her act, sing and dance in this upcoming adaptation of Kiss of the Spider Woman, and that’s thrilling.
So, you better bet your bottom dollar that I will be keeping an eye on this movie, and I’ll be sat and ready to watch JLo sing, dance and act her heart out in this fascinating story.
At the moment, we don’t know exactly when Kiss of the Spider Woman will come out, however, it is premiering at Sundance this week. So, hopefully, it’ll be released in 2025. In the meantime, you can stream Lopez’s latest movie, the sports drama Unstoppable, with an Amazon Prime subscription.