Jennifer Lopez’s Kiss of the Spider Woman was supposed to be her big comeback after a number of recent flops. It was created as a musical that would remind everyone she’s more than just a celebrity tabloid regular. Instead, it’s spinning a web of disaster… again. The film was set to open with around $2 million in ticket sales over the holiday weekend, which is super bad for everyone involved. But according to Variety, Kiss of the Spider Woman came in far below projections at No. 13 with a paltry $840,000 from 1,300 screens.
Based on the 1976 novel by Manuel Puig and the Broadway musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb, the $30 million production (plus a few million more for marketing that nobody seems to have noticed) stars Jennifer Lopez as fictional Ingrid Luna. Directed by Bill Condon (Dreamgirls and Beauty and the Beast), Kiss of the Spider Woman was meant to be Oscar bait. Instead, it’s more like bait nobody bit.
At the Sundance festival in January, Kiss of the Spider Woman premiered to a full theater. Lopez was emotional on stage as the audience rose to their feet in applause. Now, just nine months later, audiences won’t even get up from their chairs to go see the film in theaters.
But audiencers aren’t the film’s only problem. Major distributors like Netflix, Amazon, and Searchlight also quietly ignored the title, but it eventually found a home with Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions. They gave it a modest October release, probably hoping the awards-season buzz would save it. But it hasn’t.
Marketing has been practically invisible for Kiss of the Spider Woman. You’d think with Lopez on every talk show and podcast, someone would’ve realized her movie was coming out this weekend.
Lopez’s recent projects haven’t helped her case either. Her Netflix sci-fi flick Atlas was panned and sits at 18% on Rotten Tomatoes. Her album This Is Me… Now and its accompanying tour both tanked, the latter canceled under the classic “spending more time with family” excuse.
To be fair, her Amazon sports drama Unstoppable, about one-legged wrestler Anthony Robles, was solid and earned strong festival praise. But by the time it arrived on Prime Video, nobody showed any interest.
Unfortunately, Lopez continues to make more headlines for her personal life than her movies or music these days. Her marriage and divorce from Ben Affleck was more talked about than any of her recent film releases. Which is a little ironic because Affleck is actually an executive producer on Kiss of the Spider Woman, and their joint red-carpet appearance was the movie’s only real publicity moment.
In the early 2000s, people went to see Jennifer Lopez because they knew exactly what they were getting. Twenty years later, they still know what they’re getting. Only now, that’s kind of the problem.
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