In 2014, back before The B.F.G. and Ready Player One were twinkles in Uncle Stevie’s eye, the Beard was already talking about doing a remake of Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ West Side Story. If you’ve taken a high school English class in the last thirty years, you probably watched this adaptation of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s classic musical, and it’s one of Steven Spielberg’s favorite films. So, naturally, he wanted to make his own version of it. Flash-forward five years later, and the man has finally gotten around to realizing his (latest) dream project, which started shooting earlier this year. And, finally, we have our first image from it, well over a year before it hits theaters everywhere.
Take a look:
Need some help identifying who’s who in that picture above? Well, here’s a caption from a Fox press release:
“Pictured left to right are: Jets members Anybodys (Ezra Menas), Mouthpiece (Ben Cook), Action (Sean Harrison Jones); Jets leader Riff (Mike Faist); Baby John (Patrick Higgins); Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler); Maria’s brother and Sharks leader Bernardo (David Alvarez); and Sharks members Quique (Julius Anthony Rubio), Chago (Ricardo Zayas), Chino (Josh Andrés Rivera), Braulio (Sebastian Serra) and Pipo (Carlos Sánchez Falú).”
Rounding out the cast are:
“[…] Ariana DeBose (Anita); Ana Isabelle (Rosalia); Corey Stoll (Lieutenant Schrank); Brian d’Arcy James (Officer Krupke); Curtiss Cook (Abe) and Academy Award-winner Rita Moreno, who plays Valentina and also serves as one of the film’s Executive Producers.”
That’s a pretty good cast, all things considered. You called him Baby Driver, now you’ll cry your eyes out as Ansel Elgort falls into a doomed romance with Rachel Zegler. The copy pretty much writes itself, honestly. What a world we live in, huh?
Anyways, West Side Story hits theaters on December 18, 2020.