Jennifer Lopez Invites You Into a Musical Web in New ‘Kiss of the Spider-Woman’ Images

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The Kiss of the Spider Woman is not an unfamiliar title but, according to director Bill Condon, the 2025 adaptation, is “something different from anything you’ve seen.” Now, Vanity Fair is unveiling a first look at the upcoming movie-musical adaptation. The images give us our first full look at Jennifer Lopez as Ingrid Luna. The movie is based on a stage adaptation of the 1976 novel by Manuel Puig. If the title sounds familiar and doesn’t ring any bells with that, Héctor Babenco, a Brazilian director, adapted the work in 1985. William Hurt, Raul Julia, and Sônia Braga starred. Hurt won Best Actor Oscar in 1986 for his role as Luis Molina. The movie premieres at the Sundance Film Festival this Sunday.

The premise is that Molina, played by Tonatiuh in the 2025 film, is imprisoned in Argentina in the 80s. To escape the reality of his imprisonment, he imagines films starring Ingrid Luna, played by Lopez. Diego Luna also stars. In the images we also get a look at Luna and Tonatiuh as well. With Condon directing the film, after penning the classic Chicago, he explained to Vanity Fair that, “This feels like a unicorn movie to me. It’s very hard to actually distill and describe.” As for Lopez’s performance, the words seem to come easy for both him and Tonatiuh. Of her performance, Tonituah explains, “They were like [to Lopez], ‘This is your mark and then that’s your mark and that’s your mark,’ and she goes, ‘Yeah, okay,'” and to Tonituah’s surprise “she nails it perfectly. I think she finished that entire rehearsal in an hour and a half. I’m like, ‘I’ve been here for a month and a half—and you just killed that?'”

Condon Put “A Lot” Of Himself Into the Characters of ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’

Luis (Tonatiuh) mending Valentin's (Diego Luna) wounds in Kiss of the Spider Woman — Image via Sundance Institute

Condon’s directing career includes Gods and Monsters, Dreamgirls, and the last two Twilight movies. Condon explains that, “I did put an awful lot of myself into both characters.” He says, “In the case of Molina, his love of old Hollywood forms, I started to think of it at one point as my explanation for an eclectic career where I have been drawn to different genres—some of which are not the most respectable.” With the movie-musical depicting both Luis’s time in prison and what he fantasizes (which features Lopez), the movie was basically shot as two mini movies. The prison scenes were shot in Uruguay whereas the other scenes were shot on soundstages in New Jersey. “I wrote it as two movies,” Condon explains, “and we made it as two movies,” Condon says. “That left us the means to make a lavish Hollywood movie musical—because it was only 35 minutes.”

Kiss of the Spider Woman premieres at the Sundance Film Festival this Sunday. Stay with Collider for the latest updates.

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Release Date: January 26, 2025
Runtime: 128 minutes
Director: Bill Condon
Writers: Bill Condon, Manuel Puig
Producers: Barry Josephson, Ben Affleck, Benny Medina, Diego Luna, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, Jennifer Lopez, Kevin Halloran, Matt Damon, Sam Weisman, Greg Yolen, Michael Joe, Tom Kirdahy, Pamela Thur, Dani Bernfeld