‘West Side Story’ Bombs at the Box Office Despite $100M Budget

After a long delay and finally hitting theaters, the adaption of Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sonheim’s Tony-Award winning musical “West Side Story” is officially considered a bomb at the box office.

Despite rave reviews, Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story” has only achieved $36.6 million in ticket sales in the first three weeks at theaters around the world.
The film’s production budget was around $100 million, not including marketing costs.

Box-office analysts believe the movie suffered because it was targeted at older audiences, who are hesitant to return to cinemas during the Covid pandemic. It also lacked a major Hollywood star and was up against “Spider-Man: No Way Home.”

“Sounds like a write-off to me,” remarked Eric Handler, media and entertainment analyst at MKM Partners. “The markets that have done the best have been New York and L.A. The film wasn’t able to grab middle America, and it didn’t seem to have that great of a penetration into the Latino community.”

Spielberg’s new version of the iconic film was distributed by Disney’s 20th Century Studios. It has generated largely positive reviews from critics, earning a 93% “certified fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

″[‘West Side Story’] was largely a victim of timing and an inability to attract younger moviegoers,” said Shawn Robbins, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. “Women over 35 are the drivers of most musicals. Not only has that audience been the most cautious to return to public social spaces like the movie theater during the pandemic, but renewed concern created by omicron headlines seems to have played a major role in doubling down on that hesitance for the time being.”

In its opening weekend, “West Side Story” garnered $10.5 million in ticket sales.

″‘West Side Story’ was supposed to rebound this week,” said Jeff Bock, senior analyst at Exhibitor Relations. “You can’t rebound when you were never in the box office game to begin with.”

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