New Photos From Spielberg’s ‘West Side Story’ Musical Remake

Spielberg Talks The Musical's Enduring Relevancy

With so many films moving their release dates it’s tough to figure out what the landscape will look like this holiday season. If a bunch of blockbusters get dropped into the fall and winter because of the coronavirus crisis we’re in now, it could cause a total reshuffling of release dates. For now, Steven Spielberg’s musical adaptation of West Side Story is unaffected, and a bunch of new photos are here to remind you that a reason to dance is on the horizon.

This new look at Spielberg’s remake of the stage classic arrives at a time when the lights are down all across Broadway. While adapted numerous times across many decades, Spielberg feels West Side Story means as much today as ever before. He tells Vanity Fair…

“This story is not only a product of its time, but that time has returned, and it’s returned with a kind of social fury. I really wanted to tell that Puerto Rican, Nuyorican experience of basically the migration to this country and the struggle to make a living, and to have children, and to battle against the obstacles of xenophobia and racial prejudice.”

Ansel Elgort is the biggest name leading the ensemble cast, telling a romantic tale set against warring gangs in 1950s New York City. Other co-stars include Rachel Zegler, Brian d’Arcy James, Corey Stoll, Ezra Menes, Ben Cook, and Rita Moreno who starred in the 1961 movie.

West Side Story opens December 18th.

 

SOURCEVanity Fair
Travis Hopson
Travis Hopson has been reviewing movies before he even knew there was such a thing. Having grown up on a combination of bad '80s movies, pro wrestling, comic books, and hip-hop, Travis is uniquely positioned to geek out on just about everything under the sun. A vampire who walks during the day and refuses to sleep, Travis is the co-creator and lead writer for Punch Drunk Critics. He is also a contributor to Good Morning Washington, WBAL Morning News, and WETA Around Town. In the five minutes a day he's not working, Travis is also a voice actor, podcaster, and Twitch gamer. Travis is a voting member of the Critics Choice Association (CCA), Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and Late Night programmer for the Lakefront Film Festival.