EXCLUSIVE: Bill Condon brings Kiss of the Spider Woman to Sundance for the Sunday evening Eccles Theater premiere of the competition’s most eagerly anticipated acquisition title, starring Jennifer Lopez, Diego Luna and newcomer Tonatiuh. It has been 27 years since Condon redefined himself after premiering Gods and Monsters, Sundance, 32 years since Kiss of the Spider Girl opened on Broadway and gained seven Tony Awards, and 40 years because the authentic Hector Babenco-directed movie drew 4 Oscar nominations with the late William Damage successful Greatest Actor. Condon has written and directed a compelling new model of a story that’s one half vibrant film musical, and one half jail drama.
Given the latest wildfires in Southern California and the standard wariness that goes into buying indie movies, it’s no shock the Sundance market has gotten off to a sluggish begin. However many hope issues will open up after Kiss scores a deal for author/directed Condon and backers led by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon’s Artists Equity. Right here, Condon explains why he returned to the story of two cellmates, one among whom is a revolutionary being tortured for intel by a repressive Argentinian authorities. He’s distracted from his ache every evening as his window dresser cellmate paints a vivid image by re-telling his favourite MGM-style musical. The cellmate was planted by the warden to extract data that may enable the federal government to apprehend the revolutionary’s cohorts and that brings its personal ache as the boys develop nearer.
DEADLINE: This looks as if an uncommon Sundance entry, a musical that’s so polished and lavishly rendered. Jennifer Lopez works exhausting to arrange for all her roles, however you’ve created the right automobile for her by turning her free in a full blown MGM throwback musical.
BILL CONDON: It appears so apparent, doesn’t it? I do suppose having gotten to work along with her on this idiom, that she is a kind of folks, and generally I feel I is perhaps too, who was born within the unsuitable time. The extraordinary expertise that she has, she would have so flourished within the previous studio system. This might be the 18th film like this that she’d made, and it wouldn’t have occurred up to now into her profession. It’s heartbreaking in a method to me as a result of I feel it does open up all these potentialities, and I hope she’s in a position to do many extra of those, nevertheless it ought to have occurred a lot earlier.
If you discuss in regards to the odd factor for a Sundance film, the factor I’d say is that, yeah, there’s a lavish Hollywood musical there, that’s a couple of third of the film. After which the opposite half is a real impartial drama that we made in Uruguay on a really fast schedule. But additionally the factor that makes it Sundance to me is the unicorn nature of it, these two motion pictures are mashed collectively.
DEADLINE: The story of the connection between the 2 males within the cell offers the movie some grounding.
CONDON: So it’s this cross-pollinated, cross style factor. However Jennifer, Jennifer. She has 11 musical numbers and we shot all of them in three and one-half weeks. Are you able to think about? She would do one enormous quantity, after which the subsequent day she’s doing this enormous dance quantity within the supper membership. I don’t know anyone else who may do this.
DEADLINE: It’s simple to overlook she received her begin as a member of the Fly Women dance troupe on In Dwelling Coloration. So that you knew she may dance. She’s made quite a lot of motion pictures over time, however this to me is one of the best flip for her since Out of Sight.
CONDON: I feel it’s going to be a revelation for everyone. If you say Fly Women, and also you discuss to her, she grew up in New York with a mom who beloved the theater. So she was there, taking all of her dance lessons on that monitor to be a Broadway performer dancer. However she received this gig as a teen. I feel it’s a kind of issues that’s form of a humiliation of riches, however hers is a path that’s gone so many various methods by way of tv, then pop, after which clearly motion pictures. That is her returning to one thing that she supposed to do when she began.
DEADLINE: This would appear catnip for lots of actresses who sing and dance. How did this grow to be Jennifer’s automobile?
CONDON: Effectively, I sat down and wrote this script with no deal concerned or something like that. Similar to with Gods and Monsters years in the past, whenever you do one thing speculative like that, you type of have a picture, effectively, how may I get this film made? As a result of it’s not actually an apparent studio film. And it was to me, pure and easily Jennifer, she was the one particular person I had in thoughts. Not solely was it, how do you get it made, but additionally that high quality. It’s not solely that she’s enjoying an actress from the interval, she’s enjoying a diva, like Rita Hayworth or Ava Gardner. All of them have that additional oomph. We don’t develop that many divas anymore, however she’s one among them. It was so fascinating. We auditioned tons of of individuals throughout the globe for Luis Molina (Tonatiuh), and we did this one scene the place he’s speaking to the film poster on the cell wall, and so many individuals had their very own photos of Jennifer Lopez that they have been speaking to. That form of relationship of followers to somebody who’s bigger than life as she is, I feel that’s one thing you’ll be able to’t faux in a film. She simply has that additional charisma and glow, I feel.
Condon
Mega
DEADLINE: The opposite revelation is that this actor Tonatiuh, who performs the position that gained William Damage the Oscar 40 years in the past, a homosexual man who’s making an attempt to pry data out of his cellmate to win his launch.
CONDON: He was amongst tons of who auditioned and also you hone it down, and hold honing it down. We put him by way of his paces, within the dance scenes, and dealing with Diego. It turned this factor the place, the extra I knew him, it turned extra apparent simply what unbelievable items he would convey for all the performing, singing, dancing. However greater than that, that he actually may embody this very, very sophisticated character. He has to carry the display screen with Diego Luna in these scenes, and with Jennifer within the music scenes. After which there’s the opposite X issue. He’s received his personal type of wattage that retains you him, simply as you’re wanting on the two of them. That was the robust factor, discovering the three collectively, who may actually steadiness the film.
DEADLINE: Within the position of the revolutionary being tortured by his jailers, Diego Luna places his personal stamp on the position made well-known 4 a long time in the past by the late Raul Julia.
CONDON: Simply as Jennifer was the primary and solely selection, so was Diego. As a result of the factor I actually take into consideration this model is that it’s extra explicitly a love story. That was a top quality. I feel the intelligence and the open-mindedness that’s innate in him, that he brings to each position, was simply essential. That curiosity and open-mindedness that makes you imagine he’s somebody who begins actually not liking this window dresser that he has to share his cell with. He has that high quality that makes it plausible he would begin to open up because the movie progresses. It took a little bit of coaxing as a result of he was intrigued and needed to do the musical half, however he’s a perfectionist, so he needed to guarantee that if he did it, he’d have sufficient time to actually do it effectively. However for me, I’ve had the nice luck to work with a handful of simply flat-out nice actors. I feel he’s proper there on the prime of that record. He simply blew me away each day we labored collectively.
DEADLINE: How a lot of a touchstone musical was the unique stage and display screen variations of Kiss of the Spider Girl? Many keep in mind that Chita Rivera gained one among seven Tonys for the stage model, and Damage successful Oscar for the Hector Babenco movie. There are modifications like, the unique film that evokes the plot was truly a Nazi propaganda movie, whereas this feels extra just like the traditional musicals MGM cranked out.
CONDON: Effectively, to begin with, it was a groundbreaking film within the eighties. As a youthful homosexual man, I used to be so grateful for that film, and that it was one of many first impartial motion pictures to cross over in that main manner. The musical within the nineties was additionally groundbreaking, placing not solely this relationship entrance and middle, but additionally the brutality of this dictatorship and torture right into a Broadway musical. Each of these issues have been actually essential, and I loved each. I first received all in favour of it as a film once I was writing Chicago as a result of it did really feel to me it was a part of this trilogy with Cabaret in Chicago. These Kander & Ebb who dwell inside their heads and who’re actually obsessive about sure facets of present enterprise. However this felt as a result of he was telling the story of a film, it actually may benefit from being a film. In order that was the unique intuition. After which I met with Kander and Terrence McNally a few years later, after which it took endlessly to trace down the rights after which to have the ability to sit down and get going.
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There are huge variations between this and the opposite two variations. They defined why it felt essential to do a brand new model. To start with, after we wrote this novel virtually 50 years in the past. I actually, actually targeted on all the pieces that was in that extraordinary ebook. However it’s, to begin with, Molina, and the dialog that he has about his personal gender and identification as a lady that simply felt very, very present. And that’s one thing that had not been included in some other model. It additionally had greater than these different variations due to the instances wherein they have been made. There was this sense of a restrict to how a lot a mainstream viewers may settle for. The connection between the cellmates was introduced as transactional. After they lastly do kiss, Valentine is doing it solely in order that Molina will move data on. The world has grown in 50 years and that felt like an essential factor to discover. And likewise, one of many huge variations in that is that within the novel, he tells seven completely different tales of the musical. He talks extra a couple of favourite actress than telling the tales of a particular film. And on this film, I actually created one single MGM musical from 1950 that he’s obsessive about, Kiss of the Spider Girl. I feel that’s the massive problem with one thing like this. When you’re going to exist in two worlds the place you’ve received the jail story and the Hollywood story, it’s a must to just remember to don’t resent going backwards and forwards between the 2, that every one informs the opposite and so they begin to merge and grow to be one.
Jennifer Lopez attends a screening of “Unstoppable” at 2024 AFI Fest at TCL Chinese language 6 Theatres on October 26, 2024 in Hollywood, California. (Picture by Michael Tullberg/WireImage)
DEADLINE: Emilia Perez and Depraved are two musicals that received Best Picture Oscar nominations this week. You’ve written and/or directed musicals from Chicago to Dreamgirls, The Biggest Showman, Magnificence and the Beast. What does this portend for the well being of the film musical?
CONDON: The nominations are thrilling. This can be a style I like, and it has been declared DOA about 30 instances in historical past. Bear in mind within the thirties, when sound got here in? It was all musicals, after which inside three years, nobody needed to see musicals and so they have been useless, useless, useless. Busby Berkeley was the primary revival. What’s thrilling about Emilia Perez, and I hope this film too, is that it’s a kind retains reinventing itself. They did it in such a daring, up to date manner. I feel the boldness of [Kiss of the Spider Woman] is that it’s going again to the roots of Hollywood historical past and reinventing that and in a recent manner. However sadly, it’s a style the place you’re feeling that each film that comes alongside carries the burden, the burden of the entire style on its shoulders. If one among them disappoints commercially, all of a sudden it’s like, oh, that’s gone. That’s over. However there have been motion pictures that haven’t been enormous commercially which have actually been exceptional in the previous few years. Tick, Tick… Increase is one. Actually creative.
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Jon Chu had a giant hit with Depraved, however In The Heights is an excellent film too. So I feel the nice factor is that persons are nonetheless at it and dedicated to it. I feel it’s a part of the thrill and nervousness of going to Sundance. For me, the primary time there was Gods and Monsters. Once more, I’m going with a film that has no distribution that we made independently, and so we’ll see the place that lands. However I’m simply so hopeful that there’s actually important theatrical distribution for it, a theatrical life within the distribution of this film. I do suppose that’s why musicals endure, as a result of they’re nice to see in a crowd. They’re nice to see in a theater, there’s one thing communal. There’s one thing about all of a sudden folks breaking out into applause or like with Depraved, they’re singing alongside. That actually makes a case for why folks ought to return to the theater.
DEADLINE: It’s Oscar season, and I can’t think about what number of instances you and Laurence Mark and Hugh Jackman get the decision to return after your first time went so effectively in 2009. It will get described as probably the most thankless job, however we’re arising on the Centennial in a pair years. You see your self and your cohorts throwing your self into one other Academy Awards down the road?
CONDON: It’s humorous. We’ve got shied away from it however yeah, I’ll admit that the three of us have talked about that risk. It simply feels as if the prospect to actually rejoice 100 years could be fairly exceptional if it occurred. However there are people who find themselves doing it very effectively now, and that’s going to be one thing that these guys resolve. However yeah, it’s an intriguing thought, there’s no query.
DEADLINE: You’ve coated a lot of genres over your profession. Blockbusters just like the Twilight Saga movies, musicals, however I noticed you additionally did a Candyman sequel whenever you wanted to work. That is your first journey again to Park Metropolis since 1989’s Gods and Monsters, which grounded your profession and gained you the screenplay Oscar. What did that Sundance expertise imply to you?
CONDON: As is the case with quite a lot of different filmmakers I’ve been studying about this week, Sundance modified my life. There’s little doubt about it. I used to be working as a journeyman, making an attempt to study all the pieces I may. After which at a sure level it was like, oh, this isn’t what I had in thoughts in any respect. That’s the place I sat again for 3 years, wrote that script and waited and solid it and waited till we may get it made. After which we introduced it there. That was a acutely aware course correction. I didn’t come to that competition on anyone’s radar as any individual who was able to that. So we had probably the most fantastic reception. And out of that got here my relationship with Adam Shulman, my agent and now supervisor, that’s endured for nearly 30 years.
DEADLINE: An in a single day sensation after years of slogging alongside?
CONDON: Extra of a sluggish burn. We left there with out distribution and it took a number of months. After which Lionsgate, the place they only believed within the film, took it on. Nobody noticed that it will work the way in which it did. It was firstly of a form of revival of homosexual motion pictures. So I feel that made it appear a bit bit extra marginal. However once more, it’s fascinating to be reliving that once more right here, going and premiering one thing. This film is the closest in spirit to Gods And Monsters. It’s about Hollywood, and it’s additionally a homosexual movie. So I don’t know. I think it’s going to be a really emotional couple of days.
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