Remaking West Side Story for the screen is a bad enough idea on its own. The original Oscar-winning 1961 original is easily accessible, and with more and more of the viewing today happening on big-screen TVs who needs to see a new musical version in a megaplex when the old one will more or less suffice? And is the world clamoring for a Stephen Sondheim-Leonard Bernstein musical version of Baz Luhrman‘s Romeo + Juliet (’96)? True, the ’61 version seems stiff and lacquered and overly theatrical by today’s standards. The challenge, I suppose, would be to make a version that feels a bit looser and more “street” verite, and set it against a real-life culture where gang warfare, turf battles and racial animosity are regular facts of life. But of all the directors in all the world who could possibly pull this off without causing major embarassment or nausea, Steven Spielberg would have to be at the bottom of the list. Helming a new West Side Story would arouse every treacly, gooey, sentimental impulse in his system. The result would be a disaster. And yet Deadline‘s Michael Fleming is reporting that a Spielberg West Side Story is an actual possibility if DreamWorks’ Stacey Snider winds up taking the reins at 20th Century Fox.