Steven Spielberg’s ‘West Side Story’ in Theaters This December
20th Century Studios aired the first trailer for the 2021 remake of West Side Story this past Sunday at the 93rd Academy Awards. Steven Spielberg will be directing and the film is set to release on December 10, 2021.
The romantic leads are Tony and Maria. Tony is played by Ansel Elgort of Fault In Our Stars and Baby Driver as well as half-Columbian actress Rachel Zegler starring as Maria who will be in the upcoming 2023 superhero film Shazam! Fury of the Gods. The original Anita from the 1961 West Side Story film Rita Moreno will be portraying Valentina.
STARRING RACHEL ZEGLER WHAT IS LIFE WHAT IS IT I DON’T KNOW https://t.co/kTvnuMd6Jz
— rachel zegler (she/her/hers) (@rachelzegler) April 23, 2021
Other actors include Ariana DeBose from Hamilton and Netflix’s The Prom who will be portraying Anita and Brian d’Arcy James of Something Rotten! and Shrek the Musical is Officer Krupke. Actress and dancer Maddie Ziegler who is known for dancing in Sia’s music videos and starring in The Book of Henry will be Velma. Dear Evan Hansen actor Mike Faist will be playing Riff.
man I can’t wait for trans anybodys in west side story (2021, dir. steven spielberg)
— hayley “the coldplaywright” st. james 👽📻 (@hayleystjames) April 26, 2021
The trailer focuses on the opening sequence with recreations of the shots from the 1961 film. Moreno sings “Somewhere (There’s A Place For Us)” while the score by Leonard Bernstein plays. The high school dance, fight scenes, and the balcony scene are revealed in glimpses.
Rolling Stone reported that Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winner Tony Kushner who wrote the play Angels In America about the AIDS Crisis in the 1980s has written and adapted the West Side Story script of the upcoming film. New York City Ballet director and Tony Award winner Justin Peck is the choreographer. Producers for the 2021 West Side Story include Tony Award-winning Kevin McCollum and Academy Award-nominated Kristie Macosko.
west side story trailer featured during the oscars? more like the oscars featured during the west side story trailer.
— ((( fran 🤍 ))) WSS (2021) TRAILER (@cjcreggswife) April 26, 2021
The director Spielberg wrote in a statement to the audience after the film had wrapped that, “This has been a journey without precedence: a joyful, stunning, moving, endlessly surprising encounter with the story and score of one of the world’s greatest musicals.”
Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story will be available in theaters on December 10, 2021.
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