Jennifer Lopez has never exactly been the type to let a setback linger. Whether it’s in her personal life (like her high-profile divorce from Ben Affleck) or her professional orbit, the beloved “diva” and pop culture icon tends to make bold moves. And so it’s no real surprise that after her 2025 movie release,Kiss of the Spider Woman,despite some early Oscar buzz, flopped at the box office, the actress-singer-producer reportedly walked away from the project without a second thought.
According to Rob Shuter’s Naughty But Nice Substack, Lopez made the personal decision to cancel her upcoming appearance at the Savannah Film Festival just hours after news broke that the screening of Spider Woman had been scrapped. Also, insiders say the choice was entirely hers. In Shuter’s exclusive, sources close to the Selena star paint the move not as a retreat exactly. As one source tells it:
She’s not celebrating failure. She’s pivoting.
It’s fair to say she the star has been going through a lot as of late. This year has been another whirlwind for JLo, who finalized her split from Ben Affleck amid intense tabloid coverage and a noticeable media retreat. Professionally, her last two film projects, Unstoppable and Atlas also landed with a thud, despite major backing and promotional efforts. However, the setbacks allegedly aren’t stopping Lopez’s forward momentum.
If anything, they’re supposedly fueling her reinvention engine. Another source close to the “Waiting for Tonight” singer alleged to Shuter:
Jennifer doesn’t linger. She learns, she moves, she reinvents. She dumped Spider Woman before it could drag her down. Classic JLo — she calls the shots, and she’s already on to the next big thing.
And, while that might sound dramatic and should be taken with a grain of salt, it would line up with the Anaconda actress’s brand. Jennifer Lopez built a decades-long career by knowing when to pull the plug or reframe a flop as a learning moment.
Kiss of the Spider Woman, directed by Bill Condon, is a genre-blending adaptation of the Broadway musical and the 1976 novel by Argentine author Manuel Puig. Set during Argentina’s brutal “Dirty War” in 1983, the story centers on two prisoners: Molina, a queer window dresser jailed for “public indecency,” and Valentín, a tortured Marxist revolutionary. To escape their grim reality, Molina recounts his favorite film, Kiss of the Spider Woman, starring a glamorous diva played by Lopez, imagining himself and Valentín in the roles. As fantasy bleeds into truth, the two men begin to connect in unexpected, deeply human ways.
Though the film’s musical numbers haven’t wowed every viewer, critics have largely praised the movie for its emotional depth, vivid character work and striking visual contrast between grim political realism and lush escapist fantasy. The film, as of this writing, has a reasonably strong 77% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Also, it’s not like Kiss of the Spider Woman was a no-effort passion project. Jennifer Lopez was reportedly involved in every stage of production, from casting to costuming. She championed the film’s development and even teased a potential awards run. But, when that momentum dried up, it seems she chose to walk away clean.
So what’s next? Well, source say Lopez is focused on new projects and the future. That includes an upcoming romantic comedy, Office Romance, which she’s described as raunchy. This is a fascinating and different lane for the star, and the film will available to anyone with a Netflix subscription with the 2026 movie schedule seemingly playing host to that title.
