First images from Spielberg’s Broadway adaptation West Side Story are ready to hit the dance floor

When it comes to musicals, I’m not a fan. It might be a genre that proves quite popular with audiences and many critics, but I always kind of find that the song and dance get in the way of the story and there are few musicals that I have ever looked back at and felt that I would love to see a particular dance number again.

That doesn’t mean I have given up hope that good musicals can come our way and one such Broadway adaptation that I am looking forward to is West Side Story, directed by Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg. It’s not that I love the story or idea behind West Side Story, but with Spielberg tending to normally be such a crowd-pleaser when it comes to his movies that I have no doubt that he will bring his influence to the film too.

With so many films halted as a result of COVID-19, its also perhaps comforting to know that West Side Story has finished production and so should be unaffected by everything. As proof, we have some of the first images from the film (via Vanity Fair) and what the cast looks like kitted out in full costume. While these are unlikely camera shots from the actual film, if anything does stand out from them, it’s that West Side Story will likely be a visual spectacle that should delight many a fan of the genre:

Spielberg has given his full praise to the crew who he believes gave it their all and brought their full cultural influences to the set:

They brought themselves, and everything they believe and everything about them – they brought that to the work. And there was so much interaction between the cast wanting to be able to commit to the Puerto Rican experience. They all represent, I think, a diversity, both within the Puerto Rican, Nuyorican community as well as the broader Latinx community. And they took that seriously

I’m a huge fan of Spielberg, but it would take a monumental effort to make me delight in this film. Can he somehow manage to do it when this film does come out – whenever it does because, given the way film releases are going, I’m not going to put a date on it.

Last Updated: March 17, 2020