Bill Condon Explains Why KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN Should Be Seen in Theaters

For years, Bill Condon has been wanting to make a movie adapation of Kiss of the Spider Woman. "I finally decided to do something about it around 10 years ago," said the director in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter. "I pitched [John Kander and Terrence McNally] on what I wanted to do in a movie, including being truer to the original novel than they had been able to be."

After working through rights ("It was a very long detour"), the movie is finally hitting theater screens this October. Condon believes that the theatrical experience is the only way to watch a musical. "Jennifer has a few moments where you just start applauding, it is built in because it comes out of theatrical roots... I grew up at the tail end of those overblown roadshow musicals... It’s just unthinkable to me that that you’d make a movie musical where you didn’t have its first exposure be with audience."

On the medium of movie musicals itself, the filmmaker notes that they go through periods of dormancy and popularitity, and is glad this "the movie is being sold [as a musical] 100 percent in the trailers. This is a musical, there’s no question." Check out the full interview, where he also discusses working with Jennifer Lopez, filming specific musicals numbers, and more. 

For Kiss of the Spider Woman, Dreamgirls and Beauty and the Beast director Bill Condon returns to the movie musical in this dazzling Technicolor-hued fantasy. Valentín (Diego Luna/">Luna), a political prisoner, shares a cell with Molina (Tonatiuh), a window dresser convicted of public indecency. The two form an unlikely bond as Molina recounts the plot of a Hollywood musical starring his favorite silver screen diva, Ingrid Luna/">Luna (Jennifer Lopez). The movie premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival and will arrive in theaters on October 10, 2025. Find out what critics thought of it here.

Bill Condon’s visionary new adaptation is based on the acclaimed 1976 novel Kiss of the Spider Woman by Argentinian writer Manuel Puig and the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name by the multiple Tony Award-winning playwright Terrence McNally (Master Class, Ragtime) and composer/lyricist team John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago). The original musical debuted on Broadway in 1993, going on to win seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Book of a Musical, and Best Original Score. Several of the performers also took home awards, including Chita Rivera.

Written for the screen and directed by Condon, the movie stars Emmy Award nominee Luna/">Diego Luna (Andor, Y tu mamá también), Tonatiuh (Carry On, Promised Land), and Emmy, Grammy and Golden Globes Award-nominated superstar Jennifer Lopez (Hustlers, Out of Sight), who also serves as an executive producer alongside Luna/">Diego Luna. Produced by Barry Josephson, p.g.a., Tom Kirdahy, p.g.a., and Greg Yolen, p.g.

Bill Condon, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Mark Scheinberg, Dani Bernfeld, Kevin Halloran, Michael Joe, Mickey Liddell, Pete Shilaimon, Whitney Williams, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, Courtney Baxter, D. Matt Geller, Pamela Thur, Sam Weisman, Daniel Weisman, and Margaux Weisman also serve as executive producers.

Photo Courtesy Of Roadside Attractions