Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story tanked at the box office.
The ambitious remake, which was based more on the original stage musical than on the 1961 film, received a poor opening weekend with just $10.5M.
West Side Story was Spielberg’s first time dipping his toes in the musical genre, and critics, more or less, have been pleased with the direction. As reported by Deadline, the film has a lot of positive ratings overall, with a 93% score on Rotten Tomatoes.
West Side Story Official Trailer:
However, a few things factor in when wondering about why the film had such a low reception.
Disney’s timing to release the film just before the holiday season might be a key factor. With movies like Spider-Man: No Way Home just around the corner, this pre-holiday season is swarming with a younger audience going out more than West Side Story’s targeted older female audience.
In the same report, Deadline mentioned that this decision was made to get the PLF and Imax auditoriums before No Way Home’s debut.
An insider also mentioned that the studio considered losing out on the early traffic to be fine if the film slowly builds momentum, spending a longer time at the box office post-holiday season. This early release gives it some sort of head-start.
Another point that a lot of the general public has been asking is why West Side Story of all musicals? The 1961 film already has ten Oscar wins, so it’s naturally dubbed a classic.
But it’s a Spielberg project, so film enthusiasts might just give it a go even if musicals might not be their preferred genre. However, the consensus agrees on the remake simply being “unnecessary” despite having a lot of style.
The film also does not have English subtitles for its Spanish dialogues, which annoyed a lot of fans. This makes it seem like the primary target is the Latin community, excluding the non-Spanish speaking and deaf/hard-of-hearing crowd.
Again, with Netflix’s biggest gamble, Red Notice, spending just a week in theatres before coming to the streaming platform, went on to become its no. 1 film and stands at a staggering total of 328.8M viewing hours (as of Dec. 3).
West Side Story has a minimum of a 45-day exclusive theatrical release window which means it isn’t coming to Disney+ anytime soon.
Although comparing the two films is like comparing apples to oranges but still makes you wonder – would West Side Story have had that kind of reception if Disney would’ve used a similar strategy.
About West Side Story
West Side Story is a 2021 American musical romantic drama film directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Tony Kushner. It is the second feature-length adaptation of the 1957 stage musical of the same name.
It stars Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler with Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, Mike Faist, and Rita Moreno in supporting roles. Moreno, who starred in the 1961 film adaptation, also served as an executive producer, alongside Kushner.
Inspired by Romeo & Juliet in a tale of star-crossed lovers, West Side Story is an adaptation of the 1957 musical of the same name, and explores forbidden love and the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds.
Source: Deadline
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