Despite critical acclaim and two years-worth of anticipation, Steven Spielberg’s lavish \u00ab\u00a0West Side Story\u00a0\u00bb revival made little noise at the box office, debuting with $10.5 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday \u2014 a worrisome result for a movie industry struggling to recapture its finger-snapping rhythm.<\/b>
\nNEW YORK \u2014 Despite critical acclaim and two years\u2019 worth of anticipation, Steven Spielberg\u2019s lavish \u201cWest Side Story\u201d revival made little noise at the box office, debuting with $10.5 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday \u2014 a worrisome result for a movie industry struggling to recapture its finger-snapping rhythm. A dazzling widescreen adaptation and Spielberg\u2019s first musical, \u201cWest Side Story\u201d was one of the year\u2019s most eagerly awaited titles. With a script by Tony Kushner and Rita Moreno returning to her breakthrough film 60 years later, the $100 million \u201cWest Side Story\u201d epitomizes a grand-scale prestige film that Hollywood infrequently produces anymore. It hit theaters on a wave of glowing reviews and expectations that it could play a starring role in March\u2019s Academy Awards. But \u201cWest Side Story\u201d faced a challenging marketplace for both adult-driven releases and musicals. Audiences have steadily returned to multiplexes in the second year of the pandemic, but older moviegoers, who made up the bulk of ticket-buyers for Spielberg\u2019s latest, have been among the slowest to return. Musicals, too, have struggled to catch on in theaters. Lin-Manuel Miranda\u2019s \u201cIn the Heights\u201d launched with $11 million in June but the Warner Bros. release simultaneously streamed on HBO Max. But this was Spielberg. If anyone could reignite moviegoing, the thinking went, it was him. \u201cWest Side Story,\u201d too, is among the most beloved musicals. The 1961 film, directed by Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, made $43.7 million (or about $400 million adjusted for inflation) and won 10 Oscars, including best picture. \u201cWest Side Story\u201d can still be expected to play well through the lucrative holiday corridor, during which younger-skewing films like \u201cSpider-Man: No Way Home\u201d (expected to next weekend become the first pandemic release to open with $100 million or more domestically) and \u201cSing 2\u201d will likely be the top draws. Film executives are hoping the spreading omicron variant of COVID-19 doesn\u2019t set the box office back just as Hollywood is nearing its most profitable period. \u201cTo draw moviegoers to adult dramas in huge numbers right now seems like a pretty heavy lift,\u201d said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for data firm Comscore. \u201cThat will wane over time, but it is concerning for filmmakers and studios.\u201d<\/p>\n