{"id":45253,"date":"2018-11-27T17:59:31","date_gmt":"2018-11-27T22:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/?p=45253"},"modified":"2018-11-27T17:59:31","modified_gmt":"2018-11-27T22:59:31","slug":"rita-moreno-steven-spielberg-west-side-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/2018\/11\/27\/rita-moreno-steven-spielberg-west-side-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Rita Moreno Joins Spielberg&#8217;s WEST SIDE STORY"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Rita-Moreno.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/Rita-Moreno-678x339.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"678\" height=\"339\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-45254\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Rita Moreno is heading back to the West Side.<\/p>\n<p>The actress who won an Academy Award for her work in the original 1961 cinematic adaptation of the hit Broadway musical <strong>West Side Story<\/strong> is returning for director Steven Spielberg&#8217;s upcoming new version.<\/p>\n<p>In the original film, Moreno played Anita, the strong-willed girlfriend of Bernardo (George Chakiris) who famously helps to belts out the show stopping &#8220;America.&#8221; (Chita Rivera originated the role on Broadway.) In this new version, she will be playing Valentina, a reimagined version of Doc, the owner of the corner store where the show&#8217;s male lead, Tony (to be played by Ansel Elgort in this new version), works. <\/p>\n<p>In a statement announcing the casting, Moreno said &#8211; <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Never in my wildest dreams did I See myself revisiting this seminal work. And to be asked by Steven Spielberg to participate is simply thrilling! Then to work together with the brilliant playwright, Tony Kushner \u2013 what a glorious stew! I am tingling!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The casting comes as a welcome surprise as just last month the actress was stating that she wouldn&#8217;t be appearing in the film.<\/p>\n<p><strong>West Side Story<\/strong> is set to begin filming next summer for an unspecified 2020 release date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">The Academy Award winner is returning to the musical that earned her an Oscar.<\/div>\n<p> <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/2018\/11\/27\/rita-moreno-steven-spielberg-west-side-story\/\" title=\"Rita Moreno Joins Spielberg&#8217;s WEST SIDE STORY\">[click for more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[10351,1065,9552],"series":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45253","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-news","7":"tag-rita-moreno","8":"tag-steven-spielberg","9":"tag-west-side-story"},"aioseo_notices":[],"nelio_content":{"autoShareEndMode":"never","automationSources":{"useCustomSentences":false,"customSentences":[]},"efiAlt":"","efiUrl":"","followers":[2],"highlights":[],"isAutoShareEnabled":false,"networkImageIds":[],"permalinkQueryArgs":[],"series":[],"suggestedReferences":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45253"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.filmbuffonline.com\/FBOLNewsreel\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=45253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}