bear88 said: "I don't think West Side Story will affect anything unless it underperforms, because the source material is so famous, and any success it has will be written off as unique to the show itself and Spielberg."
His track record of late hasnt been the best (Ready Player One had a 175 mil budget and only did 134 mil US gross — yes, 134 mil is a lot of money, but it's not making back the production budget), and, given his revisionist take on it, coupled with the bizarre political climate in your country right now, I can see some issues coming along for the ride. It's in post now, which means it will be released on schedule, so I guess we wait and see what happens.
Look, to all of you, I hate being a Debbie Downer about all this, because I love musicals as much everyone else on these boards. I dont understand why Hollywood cant just trust the material as is and why it feels the need to "improve" on it. But sometimes we just have to accept that when a major production like CATS goes south, which it appears it will, it impacts all those other favourite projects we'd like to see. Sometimes things are just too theatrical to make the leap to film. Sometimes, in their rush to make them more "film-friendly", the studios make horrendous choices (Anyone else remember the almost-film of FOLLIES that was going to jettison three-quarters of the score in favour of clips from old MGM musicals? The all-Muppet version of INTO THE WOODS?). And I really, really cannot tell you how much I hate seeing this crap on the screen. And yet it happens, and then it screws things up for all those other hoped-for productions we want to see.
Sadly, that's life.