Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story has not received rave reviews.

The adaptation of Leonard Bernstein’s Tony Award-winning musical by Stephen Sondheim has only $36.6 million worldwide ticket sales in its three week debut in cinemas. It cost around $100million, including all marketing expenses.

Eric Handler of MKM Partners, a media and entertainment analyst said that it sounds like an exorbitant price. New York and L.A. have been the markets with highest success rates. “The film was not able grab the middle America. It also didn’t seem as if it had that much penetration in Latino communities.”

The story of two love-struck teens from different classes living in New York City’s 1950s is “West Side Story”. Tony is a young, white, boy who has ties with the Jets Gang. Maria is a young, Puerto Rican girl, with ties with the Sharks Gang. Tony and Maria cannot be loved because of the struggle between the Jets and Sharks for control of Upper West Side.

The Broadway musical premiered in 1957. In the past dozen years, it has been brought back to life a dozen more times.

The new Spielberg iteration is distributed by Disney’s20th Century Studios was praised by critics with a 93% “Fresh Rating” on Rotten Tomatoes. It was highly acclaimed for its singing and choreography. But this was not enough for moviegoers.

“[‘West Side Story’]”It was mostly a victim to timing and inability attract younger moviegoers,” stated Shawn Robbins chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. Most musicals have their drivers in women aged 35 and over. This audience was not only the least likely to be able to go back to social spaces such as the theaters during the epidemic, but the renewed fear sparked by the omicron headlines may have been a significant factor in increasing that hesitation for now.

Analysts at the box office said that “West Side Story,” which was released so closely to “Spider-Man: The Way Home”, suffered because it didn’t have a major Hollywood star attached. Marvel Cinematic Universe Film has dominated at the box office over the last two weeks.

While “West Side Story” earned $10.5million in its first weekend, that figure dropped more than half to just $3 million over its second weekend.

Jeff Bock from Exhibitor Relations, senior analyst said that “West Side Story” was expected to rebound this week. It’s impossible to rebound if your box office was never even in play.

People hoped for strong word of mouth to help the film. This was similar to how 2017’s movie “The Greatest Showman” did. However, “West Side Story,” which took in $2.8 million during the Christmas weekend, was not a success.

Box office has diminishing returns. This means that each week, a movie will earn less. The box office is expected to lose money at this rate.

Bock stated, “And when it costs $100 million to do so, it will definitely cause studios to reconsider song and dance numbers moving forward.”

Recent years have seen movie musicals struggle at the boxoffice. “Dear Evan Hansen,” which was released in theatres worldwide, earned less than $20m during the pandemic. “In the Heights,” however, made more than $30 million. HBO MaxThe total global investment was $43.8million.

The 2019 “Cats” replaced iconic Broadway costumes by digital fur. bombed at the box officeWith a $95m production budget, the company managed to bring in $72.4 Million globally. This does not include marketing expenses.

Actually, the top five highest-grossing musicals in the last five year were “Frozen II”, which was worth $1.4billion globally, and 2017, which was a live-action remake for “Beauty and the Beast” that earned $1.2billion. Comscore data shows that the animation feature Illumination’s “Sing” was the other musical film to reach $500 million.

Paul Dergarabedian (comscore senior media analyst) stated that “the musical genre seems to be out of favour for modern audiences, at least for the moment.”

Disclosure: ComcastCNBC and NBCUniversal are owned by NBCUniversal. NBCUniversal also owns Rotten Tomatoes. They distribute “Sing,” Cats” and Dear Evan Hansen.