‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ Teaser: Jennifer Lopez Is an Imaginary Movie Star in a New Take on the Beloved Musical

Bill Condon directs the new adaptation, which also stars Diego Luna and Tonatiuh.

When “Kiss of the Spider Woman” opens in theaters this October, theater fans will get a chance to see another work by one of Broadway’s most iconic composing duos on the big screen.

John Kander and Fred Ebb’s classic adaptation of Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel about a prisoner who spends his time fantasizing about a fictional movie star and his cellmate who can’t stand the hallucinations, was a massive Broadway hit when it debuted in 1992 and won six Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Original Score, and Best Book of a Musical. Bill Condon’s new film adaptation, which stars Jennifer Lopez, was one of the buzziest titles to debut at Sundance this year and could become a player in the upcoming Oscar race.

An official synopsis for ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’ reads: Valentín (Diego Luna), a political prisoner, shares a cell with Molina (Tonatiuh), a window dresser convicted of public indecency. The two form an unlikely bond as Molina recounts the plot of a Hollywood musical starring his favorite silver screen diva, Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez).

“Kiss of the Spider Woman” premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, where many critics praised Lopez’s larger-than-life presence in the film.

“Writer/director Bill Condon’s ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman,’ a new screen version of the John Kander and Fred Ebb Broadway musical itself inspired by Manuel Puig’s novel and Héctor Babenco’s 1985 Oscar winner, could do no better casting than Lopez as Ingrid Luna, a fictional screen siren and Latin American version of a Golden Age of Hollywood actress,” IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio wrote in his Sundance review. “Ingrid exists only as a figment in the imagination of Luis Molina (Tonatiuh), a gay prisoner in politically fraught 1983 Argentina, who recounts to his cellmate Valentin (Diego Luna) the plot of a movie starring her as Aurora. Lopez gets the mother of all airbrushing jobs in the film‘s musical sequences, which are shot, perhaps unusually in 2025, like an old-school Hollywood musical — and not like, say, 2002’s flashy ‘Chicago,’ the John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Bob Fosse musical adaptation written by Condon and directed by Rob Marshall. That film relied on zooms, close-ups, and harsh cuts on bodies, whereas the metafictional ‘Kiss of the Spider Woman’s’ musical scenes are shot stagelike, with actors like Lopez, Tonatiuh, and Luna in the frame top to toe.”

Roadside Attractions will release “Kiss of the Spider-Woman” in theaters on Friday, October 10. Watch the teaser below.