Iconic director Steven Spielberg announced his intentions to rewrite the iconic musical “West Side Story,” which he is remaking as a new film set to be released later this year, so that the film has more black characters in it, as reported by CNN.
One such black actor who has been confirmed for the musical remake, Curtis Cook, claimed without evidence that forcing the inclusion of black characters would be “more representative of the landscape of 1950s New York” than seen in the original classic film, released in 1961.
The original film and the remake are both adaptations of the 1958 musical, which is a love story set in New York City where a White gang member falls in love with a Puerto Rican girl, who is the younger sister of a rival gang’s leader.
In a statement released after filming concluded, Spielberg, who is most well-known for Hollywood classics such as “Jaws,” the “Indiana Jones” series, and “Jurassic Park,” described the experience as “a joyful, stunningly moving, endlessly surprising encounter with…one of the world’s greatest musicals.” The film is set to premiere on December 18th of this year.