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Full disclosure: I despise Steven Spielberg movies and dislike both Romeo and Juliet and the 1961 West Side Story (WSS) movie. For that reason, I take particular delight in noting that Steven Spielberg's remake of WSS may have enthralled critics, but no one is rushing to see it. And no wonder, given that it's so darn woke that parts of it are in a language most Americans don't speak, but Spielberg refused to include subtitles.Let me quickly get through my biases. I hate Steven Spielberg movies because I find them overblown, predictable, and incredibly boring. I also dislike the way...

NEW YORK (AP) — Despite critical acclaim and two years-worth of anticipation, Steven Spielberg’s lavish “West Side Story” revival made little noise at the box office, debuting with $10.5 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday — a worrisome result for a movie industry struggling to recapture its finger-snapping rhythm. A dazzling widescreen adaptation and Spielberg’s first musical, “West Side Story” was one of the year’s most eagerly awaited titles. With a script by Tony Kushner and Rita Moreno returning to her breakthrough film 60 years later, the $100-million “West Side Story” epitomizes a grand-scale prestige film that...

"West Side Story" had little to sing about this weekend. 20th Century Studios' remake of the 1961 classic musical brought in an estimated $10.5 million for its opening in North America this weekend. This total was below expectations, which projected the film to make closer to $15 million in its debut weekend. The total is a bit surprising considering that the film had a lot working in its favor. For starters, it is directed by Steven Spielberg, one of the most recognizable and blockbuster directors in history. His name alone appeared to not be enough to get people to buy...

Director Steven Spielberg’s woke West Side Story remake is a box office catastrophe expected to open in the $10 million range. How awful is that? Well, do you remember that previous woke catastrophe, In the Heights? It opened to $11.5 million. West Side Story is projected to bomb harder than In the Heights, lol. Even so, the In the Heights’ production budget was only $55 million.

Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of the beloved musical “West Side Story” finally began to screen for awards voters over the weekend ahead of its Christmas Day release. First reactions are pouring out as the film’s official premiere at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles gets underway. Early reactions are offering praise for Spielberg’s direction and high marks for Rachel Zegler as Maria in her film debut. The musical premiered mere days after the death of Stephen Sondheim (who wrote the lyrics for the original production, with a book by Arthur Laurents and score by Leonard Bernstein) at the age of...

MICHELLE and Barack Obama enjoyed a swanky dinner with Steven Spielberg, Bruce Springsteen, and other Hollywood elites at Tom Hanks’ $26million mansion. The former US leader and first lady were spotted in Pacific Palisades on Sunday night, where the Secret Service took over the neighborhood to accommodate the A-listers' evening. Located in a cul de sac, Hanks' home was the perfect location for a lowkey but glitzy dinner after Tom and Rita celebrated their 33rd wedding anniversary on Friday. The White House-turned-Tinseltown power couple was spotted sitting in a black car and staring intently at their phones as they left...

The porn-actress daughter of director Steven Spielberg was arrested and jailed in Nashville, Tenn. early Saturday on a misdemeanor domestic violence, court records show. Mikaela Spielberg, 23, lately in news after she launched a film career of her own — in skin flicks– was admitted into the Hill Detention Center at 6:33 a.m., online inmate records show. Her $1,000 bail has already been posted, and she will be released at the conclusion of a 12-hour “hold,” which is routine in domestic violence cases, an official with the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office told The Post. “Someone has already posted her bond;...

The liberal director of The Washington Post-touting film The Post (2017) Steven Spielberg has not kept silent about his disdain for President Donald Trump, and neither has his wallet. Liberal filmmaker Steven Spielberg and his wife Kate Capshaw have contributed $3,500,000 collectively to liberal outside spending groups so far this cycle. Pacronym, which received $500,000 each from the celebrity duo, is the affiliated political action committee for Acronym, the company behind the Iowa Democratic Caucus app fiasco. The duo also contributed $1,000,000 collectively to the Senate Majority PAC, which works to help Democrats win control over the Senate.

Harrison Ford isn’t hanging up his fedora anytime soon. The actor, 77, is returning to his Indiana Jones character in an upcoming fifth installment of the film, Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy confirmed to BBC News while on the BAFTA Awards red carpet on Sunday. “We’re working away, getting the script where we want it to be and then we’ll be ready to go,” Kennedy said. Asked if Ford might reprise his role, Kennedy said he would. “Harrison Ford will be involved, yeah,” she said. “It’s not a reboot; it’s a continuation.” Kennedy added, “He can’t wait.”

We are just over a month into the new Disney/Fox status quo. The Mouse House has become the industry’s first mega-studio by absorbing one of its biggest competitors in a deal that has had massive repercussions, already, with thousands losing jobs and films suddenly finding themselves without a studio. But there is a lot more at play in the merger than what many were probably considering, such as Disney’s morals. Everyone knows that Disney doesn’t make films the same way that everyone else does. The films under the Disney banner have a certain limit on how far they can go....

Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Quincy Jones and Broadway veteran Scott Sanders are set to produce a new film version of The Color Purple that Warner Bros. will develop as a feature adaptation of the acclaimed musical, Collider has exclusively learned. Spielberg famously directed the 1985 adaptation of Alice Walker‘s 1982 novel, which won a Pulitzer Prize, making its author the first black woman to win the Pulitzer for fiction. The original Broadway production of The Color Purple ran from 2005 to 2008, earning 11 Tony Award nominations in 2006. A Broadway revival opened in late 2015 and ran through early...

Lena Dunham will write the harrowing survival tale of a Syrian refugee stranded at sea for the big screen. Dunham has been tapped by co-producers Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams to adapt “A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea: One Refugee’s Incredible Story of Love, Loss, and Survival.” The nonfiction release comes from author Melissa Fleming, the chief spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner and Flatiron Books. It documents the true story of Doaa Al Zamel, a mother of two fleeing Egypt for Sweden by boat. Shipwrecked along the way, Al Zamel survived for days in open water holding...

Hillary Clinton is setting her sights on a new office: executive producer. The former secretary of state is teaming with Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television to bring Elaine Weiss' critically acclaimed book The Woman's Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote to the small screen. The drama will mark Clinton's debut as an exec producer. The book, published in March, follows the activists who led the decades-long fight to grant women the right to vote and sheds light on how close the battle to ratify the 19th Amendment really was. The book celebrates those who changed history and laid the...

Anyone see "Lincoln" on Netflix? Shockingly, it is mainly about how the Democrats tried to stop Lincoln and Republicans from passing the 13th amendment to free the slaves. Hard to believe I know because Speilberg is the biggest Democratic donor ever. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_(film)

Of the making of Washington movies, there is no end. Kohelet said this in Ecclesiastes, I think. Or maybe it was Gene Shalit on the Today Show. It’s a truism in any case. Steven Spielberg’s latest entry in the genre, The Post, is for many Washingtonians the most powerful example in the long line. When the movie opened here in late December, there were reports of audiences cheering lustily and even dissolving in tears at the movie’s end, as if they were watching a speech by President Obama. The local paper ran news articles about it, along with numberless feature...

In her latest appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Thursday, Oprah Winfrey opened up about her hefty donation to the March for Our Lives movement and responded to the president’s "hate tweet" against her. Following the tragic deadly school shooting in Parkland, Fla. Winfrey announced that she would be following George and Amal Clooney, Jeffrey and Marilyn Katzenberg and Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw and making a $500,000 donation to support the March for Our Lives demonstration in which students “will take to the streets of Washington, D.C. to demand that their lives and safety become a priority” and that...

Hot off directing back to back pictures in the Oscar contender The Post and the upcoming Ready Player One, Steven Spielberg is now figuring out his next two directorial vehicles. There are several percolating, but sources say he is eyeing Indiana Jones, and then would either precede or follow quickly with another pic. I’m hearing that one might be his dream project, a new version of West Side Story. Spielberg’s camp had no comment on his plans. Deadline revealed back in 2015 that Spielberg had his eye on his Jurassic World star Chris Pratt to be a central part of...

I have some personal knowledge regarding the movie The Post and its subject matter, the Pentagon Papers. At the time the Pentagon Papers began to be published in the summer of 1971, my father was highly placed in the Internal Security Division of the Justice Department and participated in the decision-making process regarding prosecution of the Pentagon Papers cases. I have a specific recollection around that time of my father at the breakfast table with the family, on several mornings, suddenly breaking out in a cursing rage. I was perplexed by this behavior, but after a while, a pattern emerged....

Reports now, according to Exhibitor Relations: if things continue as they have, this will be the lowest box office in a quarter century. While there have been bright spots (“Dunkirk”) and surprises (“Baby Driver”) the failures have outweighed everything. Start with a total write off on “King Arthur” and go from there. Then go to “The Dark Tower.” One terrible new failure: “Nut Job 2,” they say, is the biggest loser ever in wide release (4000+) studio movie. It made just over $8 million this weekend. Four years ago, at a USC symposium, famed and very successful directors George Lucas...

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. At the lowest point in the second presidential debate Hillary Clinton tried to blame her compulsive lying on Abraham Lincoln. Not the real Lincoln, but the fictional version depicted in the Spielberg movie. “She lied. Now she's blaming the lie on the late great Abraham Lincoln,” Trump said in exasperation. “Honest Abe never lied.” The only thing Hillary and Lincoln have in common is Illinois. If Hillary had been looking for wisdom from Lincoln, she might have started with the famous...