West Side Story hits Disney Plus, HBO Max on March 2
Steven Spielberg's Oscar-nominated film will stream just a few weeks before the Academy Awards show.
- Though Kourtnee hasn't won any journalism awards yet, she's been a Netflix streaming subscriber since 2012 and knows the magic of its hidden codes.
West Side Story will stream on Disney Plus.
While everyone's talking about why Encanto's Bruno song didn't earn an Academy Award nomination, another buzzy musical is ripe for awards season attention. Stephen Spielberg's West Side Story adaptation will arrive on Disney Plus and HBO Max on March 2. Tony and Maria will dance onto the small screen where viewers can watch their love story unfold -- on demand.
The film hit theaters in November, and though it wasn't a box office smash, it earned seven Oscar nominations. Spielberg teamed with screenwriter Tony Kushner to pen the script, which was praised for remaining faithful to the original stage play while folding in elements from the 1961 movie. A modern riff on Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story is set in New York City in 1957. The tale follows the gang rivalry between the Sharks and Jets and the forbidden romance between Tony (Ansel Elgort) and Maria (Rachel Zegler), who belong to opposing sides.
Rita Moreno, who appeared in the 1961 version as Anita, plays a supporting character in Spielberg's remake of the creation of Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Bernstein and Jerome Robbins. Other notable cast members who slipped on their West Side dancing shoes include Maddie Ziegler, Iris Menas, Ariana DeBose, Kyle Allen, Josh Andrés Rivera and David Alvarez.
Though audiences and critics were divided, the movie still snagged a score of 85 on Metacritic.
New and returning Disney Plus subscribers can sign up for the ad-free streaming service for $8 per month to check out West Side Story when it debuts on March 2. Rather stream it on HBO Max? The service costs $10 monthly for the ad-supported version and $15 without ads.