For Sale: Spider Woman

In an unusual move for the film world, the gay classic Kiss of the Spider Woman will be put up for sale as a complete work of art.

Nominated for four Academy Awards including best picture in 1985, Kiss of the Spider Woman won a best actor Oscar for William Hurt, who played a gay man. Raul Julia also starred in the independent Brazilian-American film directed by Hector Babenco.

According to The New York Times, producer David Weisman and David S. Phillips, who later acquired the rights with him, plan to offer Kiss of the Spider Woman as a collectible.

“By that, they mean an object of beauty,” writes the Times. “The film is now available in its entirety — its copyright, negatives, prints, digital video masters and more — along with a carefully preserved archive that includes 313 boxes of 35-millimeter outtakes, five drafts of the screenplay by Leonard Schrader and a stack of rejection letters from studio executives who were sure that the movie would never work.”

John Wronoski, a book dealer in Cambridge, Mass., soon will begin to offer the film privately to a small group of potential buyers. He declined to tell the Times what he might accept as a minimum bid but he said he has a figure in mind.