title: Zeus

text: Zeus is the child of Cronus and Rhea, the youngest of his siblings to be born, though sometimes reckoned the eldest as the others required disgorging from Cronus's stomach. In most traditions, he is married to Hera, by whom he is usually said to have fathered Ares, Eileithyia, Hebe, and Hephaestus. At the oracle of Dodona, his consort was said to be Dione, by whom the "Iliad" states that he fathered Aphrodite. According to the "Theogony", Zeus' first wife was Metis, by whom he had Athena. Zeus was also infamous for his erotic escapades. These resulted in many divine and heroic offspring, including Apollo, Artemis, Hermes, Persephone, Dionysus, Perseus, Heracles, Helen of Troy, Minos, and the Muses.


title: Zeus

text: He was respected as an allfather who was chief of the gods and assigned roles to the others: "Even the gods who are not his natural children address him as Father, and all the gods rise in his presence." He was equated with many foreign weather gods, permitting Pausanias to observe "That Zeus is king in heaven is a saying common to all men". Zeus' symbols are the thunderbolt, eagle, bull, and oak. In addition to his Indo-European inheritance, the classical "cloud-gatherer" (Greek: , "Nephelēgereta") also derives certain iconographic traits from the cultures of the ancient Near East, such as the scepter. Zeus is frequently depicted by Greek artists in one of three poses: standing, striding forward with a thunderbolt leveled in his raised right hand, or seated in majesty. It was very important for the lightning to be exclusively in the god's right hand as the Greeks believed that people who were left-handed were associated with bad luck.


title: Zeus

text: The god's name in the nominative is ("Zeús"). It is inflected as follows: vocative: (""); accusative: (); genitive: (); dative: (). Diogenes Laërtius quotes Pherecydes of Syros as spelling the name .


title: Zeus

text: "Zeus" is the Greek continuation of *"," the name of the Proto-Indo-European god of the daytime sky, also called *' ("Sky Father"). The god is known under this name in the Rigveda (Vedic Sanskrit "Dyaus/Dyaus Pita"), Latin (compare "Jupiter", from "Iuppiter", deriving from the Proto-Indo-European vocative *'), deriving from the root *"dyeu"- ("to shine", and in its many derivatives, "sky, heaven, god"). Albanian is also a cognate of "Zeus". In both the Greek and Albanian forms the original cluster "*di̯" underwent affrication to "*dz". Zeus is the only deity in the Olympic pantheon whose name has such a transparent Indo-European etymology.


title: Zeus

text: The earliest attested forms of the name are the Mycenaean Greek , "di-we" and , "di-wo", written in the Linear B syllabic script.


title: Zeus

text: Plato, in his "Cratylus", gives a folk etymology of Zeus meaning "cause of life always to all things", because of puns between alternate titles of Zeus ("Zen" and "Dia") with the Greek words for life and "because of". This etymology, along with Plato's entire method of deriving etymologies, is not supported by modern scholarship.


title: Zeus

text: Diodorus Siculus wrote that Zeus was also called Zen, because the humans believed that he was the cause of life (zen). While Lactantius wrote that he was called Zeus and Zen, not because he is the giver of life, but because he was the first who lived of the children of Cronus.


title: Zeus

text: In Hesiod's "Theogony" (c. 730 – 700 BC), Cronus, after castrating his father Uranus, becomes the supreme ruler of the cosmos, and weds his sister Rhea, by whom he begets three daughters and three sons: Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon, and lastly, "wise" Zeus, the youngest of the six. He swallows each child as soon as they are born, having received a prophecy from his parents, Gaia and Uranus, that one of his own children is destined to one day overthrow him as he overthrew his father. This causes Rhea "unceasing grief", and upon becoming pregnant with her sixth child, Zeus, she approaches her parents, Gaia and Uranus, seeking a plan to save her child and bring retribution to Cronus. Following her parents' instructions, she travels to Lyctus in Crete, where she gives birth to Zeus, handing the newborn child over to Gaia for her to raise, and Gaia takes him to a cave on Mount Aegaeon. Rhea then gives to Cronus, in the place of a child, a stone wrapped in swaddling clothes, which he promptly swallows, unaware that it isn't his son.


title: Zeus

text: While Hesiod gives Lyctus as Zeus's birthplace, he is the only source to do so, and other authors give different locations. The poet Eumelos of Corinth (8th century BC), according to John the Lydian, considered Zeus to have been born in Lydia, while the Alexandrian poet Callimachus (c. 310 – c. 240 BC), in his "Hymn to Zeus", says that he was born in Arcadia. Diodorus Siculus (fl. 1st century BC) seems at one point to give Mount Ida as his birthplace, but later states he is born in Dicte, and the mythographer Apollodorus (first or second century AD) similarly says he was born in a cave in Dicte.


title: Zeus

text: While the "Theogony" says nothing of Zeus's upbringing other than that he grew up swiftly, other sources provide more detailed accounts.


title: Zeus

text: According to Apollodorus, Rhea, after giving birth to Zeus in a cave in Dicte, gives him to the nymphs Adrasteia and Ida, daughters of Melisseus, to nurse. They feed him on the milk of the she-goat Amalthea, while the Kouretes guard the cave and beat their spears on their shields so that Cronus cannot hear the infant's crying. Diodorus Siculus provides a similar account, saying that, after giving birth, Rhea travels to Mount Ida and gives the newborn Zeus to the Kouretes, who then takes him to some nymphs (not named), who raised him on a mixture of honey and milk from the goat Amalthea. He also refers to the Kouretes "rais[ing] a great alarum", and in doing so deceiving Cronus, and relates that when the Kouretes were carrying the newborn Zeus that the umbilical cord fell away at the river Triton.


title: Zeus

text: Hyginus, in his "Fabulae", relates a version in which Cronus casts Poseidon into the sea and Hades to the Underworld instead of swallowing them. When Zeus is born, Hera (also not swallowed), asks Rhea to give her the young Zeus, and Rhea gives Cronus a stone to swallow. Hera gives him to Amalthea, who hangs his cradle from a tree, where he isn't in heaven, on earth or in the sea, meaning that when Cronus later goes looking for Zeus, he is unable to find him. Hyginus also says that Ida, Althaea, and Adrasteia, usually considered the children of Oceanus, are sometimes called the daughters of Melisseus and the nurses of Zeus.


title: Zeus

text: According to a fragment of Epimenides, the nymphs Helike and Kynosura are the young Zeus's nurses. Cronus travels to Crete to look for Zeus, who, to conceal his presence, transforms himself into a snake and his two nurses into bears. According to Musaeus, after Zeus is born, Rhea gives him to Themis. Themis in turn gives him to Amalthea, who owns a she-goat, which nurses the young Zeus.


title: Zeus

text: Antoninus Liberalis, in his "Metamorphoses", says that Rhea gives birth to Zeus in a sacred cave in Crete, full of sacred bees, which become the nurses of the infant. While the cave is considered forbidden ground for both mortals and gods, a group of thieves seek to steal honey from it. Upon laying eyes on the swaddling clothes of Zeus, their bronze armour "split[s] away from their bodies", and Zeus would have killed them had it not been for the intervention of the Moirai and Themis; he instead transforms them into various species of birds.


title: Zeus

text: According to the "Theogony", after Zeus reaches manhood, Cronus is made to disgorge the five children and the stone "by the stratagems of Gaia, but also by the skills and strength of Zeus", presumably in reverse order, vomiting out the stone first, then each of the five children in the opposite order to swallowing. Zeus then sets up the stone at Delphi, so that it may act as "a sign thenceforth and a marvel to mortal men". Zeus next frees the Cyclopes, who, in return, and out of gratitude, give him his thunderbolt, which had previously been hidden by Gaia. Then begins the Titanomachy, the war between the Olympians, led by Zeus, and the Titans, led by Cronus, for control of the universe, with Zeus and the Olympians fighting from Mount Olympus, and the Titans fighting from Mount Othrys. The battle lasts for ten years with no clear victor emerging, until, upon Gaia's advice, Zeus releases the Hundred-Handers, who (similarly to the Cyclopes) were imprisoned beneath the Earth's surface. He gives them nectar and ambrosia and revives their spirits, and they agree to aid him in the war. Zeus then launches his final attack on the Titans, hurling bolts of lightning upon them while the Hundred-Handers attack with barrages of rocks, and the Titans are finally defeated, with Zeus banishing them to Tartarus and assigning the Hundred-Handers the task of acting as their warders.


title: Zeus

text: Apollodorus provides a similar account, saying that, when Zeus reaches adulthood, he enlists the help of the Oceanid Metis, who gives Cronus an emetic, forcing to him to disgorge the stone and Zeus's five siblings. Zeus then fights a similar ten-year war against the Titans, until, upon the prophesying of Gaia, he releases the Cyclopes and Hundred-Handers from Tartarus, first slaying their warder, Campe. The Cyclopes give him his thunderbolt, Poseidon his trident and Hades his helmet of invisibility, and the Titans are defeated and the Hundred-Handers made their guards.


title: Zeus

text: According to the "Iliad", after the battle with the Titans, Zeus shares the world with his brothers, Poseidon and Hades, by drawing lots: Zeus receives the sky, Poseidon the sea, and Hades the underworld, with the earth and Olympus remaining common ground.


title: Zeus

text: Upon assuming his place as king of the cosmos, Zeus' rule is quickly challenged. The first of these challenges to his power comes from the Giants, who fight the Olympian gods in a battle known as the Gigantomachy. According to Hesiod, the Giants are the offspring of Gaia, born from the drops of blood that fell on the ground when Cronus castrated his father Uranus; there is, however, no mention of a battle between the gods and the Giants in the "Theogony". It is Apollodorus who provides the most complete account of the Gigantomachy. He says that Gaia, out of anger at how Zeus had imprisoned her children, the Titans, bore the Giants to Uranus. There comes to the gods a prophecy that the Giants cannot be defeated by the gods on their own, but can be defeated only with the help of a mortal; Gaia, upon hearing of this, seeks a special "pharmakon" (herb) that will prevent the Giants from being killed. Zeus, however, orders Eos (Dawn), Selene (Moon) and Helios (Sun) to stop shining, and harvests all of the herb himself, before having Athena summon Heracles. In the conflict, Porphyrion, one of the most powerful of the Giants, launches an attack upon Heracles and Hera; Zeus, however, causes Porphyrion to become lustful for Hera, and when he is just about to violate her, Zeus strikes him with his thunderbolt, before Heracles deals the fatal blow with an arrow.


title: Zeus

text: In the "Theogony", after Zeus defeats the Titans and banishes them to Tartarus, his rule is challenged by the monster Typhon, a giant serpentine creature who battles Zeus for control of the cosmos. According to Hesiod, Typhon is the offspring of Gaia and Tartarus, described as having a hundred snaky fire-breathing heads. Hesiod says he "would have come to reign over mortals and immortals" had it not been for Zeus noticing the monster and dispatching with him quickly: the two of them meet in a cataclysmic battle, before Zeus defeats him easily with his thunderbolt, and the creature is hurled down to Tartarus. Epimenides presents a different version, in which Typhon makes his way into Zeus's palace while he is sleeping, only for Zeus to wake and kill the monster with a thunderbolt. Aeschylus and Pindar give somewhat similar accounts to Hesiod, in that Zeus overcomes Typhon with relative ease, defeating him with his thunderbolt. Apollodorus, in contrast, provides a more complex narrative. Typhon is, similarly to in Hesiod, the child of Gaia and Tartarus, produced out of anger at Zeus's defeat of the Giants. The monster attacks heaven, and all of the gods, out of fear, transform into animals and flee to Egypt, except for Zeus, who attacks the monster with his thunderbolt and sickle. Typhon is wounded and retreats to Mount Kasios in Syria, where Zeus grapples with him, giving the monster a chance to wrap him in his coils, and rip out the sinews from his hands and feet. Disabled, Zeus is taken by Typhon to the Corycian Cave in Cilicia, where he is guarded by the "she-dragon" Delphyne. Hermes and Aegipan, however, steal back Zeus's sinews, and refit them, reviving him and allowing him to return to the battle, pursuing Typhon, who flees to Mount Nysa; there, Typhon is given "ephemeral fruits" by the Moirai, which reduce his strength. The monster then flees to Thrace, where he hurls mountains at Zeus, which are sent back at him by the god's thunderbolts, before, while fleeing to Sicily, Zeus launches Mount Etna upon him, finally ending him. Nonnus, who gives the most longest and most detailed account from antiquity, presents a narrative similar to Apollodorus, with differences such as that it is instead Cadmus and Pan who recovers Zeus's sinews, by luring Typhon with music and then tricking him.


title: Zeus

text: In the "Iliad", Homer tells of another attempted overthrow, in which Hera, Poseidon, and Athena conspire to overpower Zeus and tie him in bonds. It is only because of the Nereid Thetis, who summons Briareus, one of the Hecatoncheires, to Olympus, that the other Olympians abandon their plans (out of fear for Briareus).


title: Zeus

text: According to Hesiod, Zeus had seven wives. His first wife was the Oceanid Metis, whom he swallowed on the advice of Gaia and Uranus, so that no son of his by Metis would overthrow him, as had been foretold. Later, their daughter Athena would be born from the forehead of Zeus.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus's next marriage was to his aunt and advisor Themis, who bore the Horae (Seasons) and the Moirai (Fates). Zeus then married the Oceanid Eurynome, who bore the three Charites (Graces).


title: Zeus

text: Zeus's fourth wife was his sister, Demeter, who bore Persephone. The fifth wife of Zeus was his aunt, the Titan Mnemosyne, whom he seduced in the form of a mortal shepherd. Zeus and Mnemosyne had the nine Muses. His sixth wife was the Titan Leto, who gave birth to Apollo and Artemis on the island of Delos.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus was the brother and consort of Hera. According to Pausanias, Zeus had turned himself into a cuckoo to woo Hera. By Hera, Zeus sired Ares, Hebe, Eileithyia and Hephaestus, though some accounts say that Hera produced these offspring alone. Some also include Eris, Enyo and Angelos as their daughters. In the section of the Iliad known to scholars as the Deception of Zeus, the two of them are described as having begun their sexual relationship without their parents knowing about it.


title: Zeus

text: According to a scholion on Theocritus' "Idylls", when Hera was heading toward Mount Thornax alone, Zeus created a terrible storm and transformed himself into a cuckoo bird who flew down and sat on her lap. When Hera saw the cuckoo, she felt pity for him and covered him with her cloak. Zeus then transformed back and took hold of her; because she was refusing to sleep with him due to their mother, he promised to marry her. In one account Hera refused to marry Zeus and hid in a cave to avoid him; an earthborn man named Achilles convinced her to give him a chance, and thus the two had their first sexual intercourse. Zeus then promised Achilles that every person who bore his name shall become famous.


title: Zeus

text: A variation goes that Hera had been reared by a nymph named Macris on the island of Euboea, but Zeus stole her away, where Mt. Cithaeron, in the words of Plutarch, "afforded them a shady recess". When Macris came to look for her ward, the mountain-god Cithaeron drove her away, saying that Zeus was taking his pleasure there with Leto.


title: Zeus

text: According to Callimachus, their wedding feast lasted three thousand years. The Apples of the Hesperides that Heracles was tasked by Eurystheus to take were a wedding gift by Gaia to the couple.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus mated with several nymphs and was seen as the father of many mythical mortal progenitors of Hellenic dynasties. Aside from his seven wives, relationships with immortals included Dione and Maia. Among mortals were Semele, Io, Europa and Leda (for more details, see below) and with the young Ganymede (although he was mortal Zeus granted him eternal youth and immortality).


title: Zeus

text: Many myths render Hera as jealous of his affairs and a consistent enemy of Zeus' mistresses and their children by him. For a time, a nymph named Echo had the job of distracting Hera from his affairs by talking incessantly, and when Hera discovered the deception, she cursed Echo to repeat the words of others.


title: Zeus

text: According to Diodorus Siculus, Alcmene, the mother of Heracles, was the very last mortal woman Zeus ever slept with; following the birth of Heracles, he ceased to beget humans altogether, and fathered no more children.


title: Zeus

text: When the gods met at Mecone to discuss which portions they will receive after a sacrifice, the titan Prometheus decided to trick Zeus so that humans receive the better portions. He sacrificed a large ox, and divided it into two piles. In one pile he put all the meat and most of the fat, covering it with the ox's grotesque stomach, while in the other pile, he dressed up the bones with fat. Prometheus then invited Zeus to choose; Zeus chose the pile of bones. This set a precedent for sacrifices, where humans will keep the fat for themselves and burn the bones for the gods.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus, enraged at Prometheus's deception, prohibited the use of fire by humans. Prometheus, however, stole fire from Olympus in a fennel stalk and gave it to humans. This further enraged Zeus, who punished Prometheus by binding him to a cliff, where an eagle constantly ate Prometheus's liver, which regenerated every night. Prometheus was eventually freed from his misery by Heracles.


title: Zeus

text: Now Zeus, angry at humans, decides to give humanity a punishing gift to compensate for the boon they had been given. He commands Hephaestus to mold from earth the first woman, a "beautiful evil" whose descendants would torment the human race. After Hephaestus does so, several other gods contribute to her creation. Hermes names the woman 'Pandora'.


title: Zeus

text: Pandora was given in marriage to Prometheus's brother Epimetheus. Zeus gave her a jar which contained many evils. Pandora opened the jar and released all the evils, which made mankind miserable. Only hope remained inside the jar.


title: Zeus

text: When Zeus was atop Mount Olympus he was appalled by human sacrifice and other signs of human decadence. He decided to wipe out mankind and flooded the world with the help of his brother Poseidon. After the flood, only Deucalion and Pyrrha remained. This flood narrative is a common motif in mythology.


title: Zeus

text: The "Iliad" is an ancient Greek epic poem attributed to Homer about the Trojan war and the battle over the City of Troy, in which Zeus plays a major part.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus slept with his great-granddaughter, Alcmene, disguised as her husband Amphitryon. This resulted in the birth of Heracles, who would be tormented by Zeus's wife Hera for the rest of his life. After his death, Heracles's mortal parts were incinerated and he joined the gods on Olympus. He married Zeus and Hera's daughter, Hebe, and had two sons with her, Alexiares and Anicetus.


title: Zeus

text: When Hades requested to marry Zeus's daughter, Persephone, Zeus approved and advised Hades to abduct Persephone, as her mother Demeter wouldn't allow her to marry Hades.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus fell in love with Semele, the daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia, and started an affair with her. Hera discovered his affair when Semele later became pregnant, and persuaded Semele to sleep with Zeus in his true form. When Zeus showed his true form to Semele, his lightning and thunderbolts burned her to death. Zeus saved the fetus by stitching it into his thigh, and the fetus would be born as Dionysus.


title: Zeus

text: In the Orphic "Rhapsodic Theogony" (first century BC/AD), Zeus wanted to marry his mother Rhea. After Rhea refused to marry him, Zeus turned into a snake and raped her. Rhea became pregnant and gave birth to Persephone. Zeus in the form of a snake would mate with his daughter Persephone, which resulted in the birth of Dionysus.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus granted Callirrhoe's prayer that her sons by Alcmaeon, Acarnan and Amphoterus, grow quickly so that they might be able to avenge the death of their father by the hands of Phegeus and his two sons.


title: Zeus

text: Both Zeus and Poseidon wooed Thetis, daughter of Nereus. But when Themis (or Prometheus) prophesied that the son born of Thetis would be mightier than his father, Thetis was married off to the mortal Peleus.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus was afraid that his grandson Asclepius would teach resurrection to humans, so he killed Asclepius with his thunderbolt. This angered Asclepius's father, Apollo, who in turn killed the Cyclopes who had fashioned the thunderbolts of Zeus. Angered at this, Zeus would have imprisoned Apollo in Tartarus. However, at the request of Apollo's mother, Leto, Zeus instead ordered Apollo to serve as a slave to King Admetus of Pherae for a year. According to Diodorus Siculus, Zeus killed Asclepius because of complains from Hades, who was worried that the number of people in the underworld was diminishing because of Asclepius's resurrections.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus took pity on Ixion, a man who was guilty of murdering his father-in-law, by purifying him and bringing him to Olympus. However, Ixion started to lust after Hera. Hera complained about this to her husband, and Zeus decided to test Ixion. Zeus fashioned a cloud that resembles Hera (Nephele) and laid the cloud-Hera in Ixion's bed. Ixion coupled with Nephele, resulting in the birth of Centaurus. Zeus punished Ixion for lusting after Hera by tying him to a wheel that spins forever.


title: Zeus

text: Once, Helios the sun god gave his chariot to his inexperienced son Phaethon to drive. Phaethon could not control his father's steeds so he ended up taking the chariot too high, freezing the earth, or too low, burning everything to the ground. The earth itself prayed to Zeus, and in order to prevent further disaster, Zeus hurled a thunderbolt at Phaethon, killing him and saving the world from further harm. In a satirical work, "Dialogues of the Gods" by Lucian, Zeus berates Helios for allowing such thing to happen; he returns the damaged chariot to him and warns him that if he dares do that again, he will strike him with one of this thunderbolts.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus played a dominant role, presiding over the Greek Olympian pantheon. He fathered many of the heroes and was featured in many of their local cults. Though the Homeric "cloud collector" was the god of the sky and thunder like his Near-Eastern counterparts, he was also the supreme cultural artifact; in some senses, he was the embodiment of Greek religious beliefs and the archetypal Greek deity.


title: Zeus

text: Aside from local epithets that simply designated the deity as doing something random at some particular place, the epithets or titles applied to Zeus emphasized different aspects of his wide-ranging authority:


title: Zeus

text: The major center where all Greeks converged to pay honor to their chief god was Olympia. Their quadrennial festival featured the famous Games. There was also an altar to Zeus made not of stone, but of ash, from the accumulated remains of many centuries' worth of animals sacrificed there.


title: Zeus

text: Outside of the major inter-polis sanctuaries, there were no modes of worshipping Zeus precisely shared across the Greek world. Most of the titles listed below, for instance, could be found at any number of Greek temples from Asia Minor to Sicily. Certain modes of ritual were held in common as well: sacrificing a white animal over a raised altar, for instance.


title: Zeus

text: With one exception, Greeks were unanimous in recognizing the birthplace of Zeus as Crete. Minoan culture contributed many essentials of ancient Greek religion: "by a hundred channels the old civilization emptied itself into the new", Will Durant observed, and Cretan Zeus retained his youthful Minoan features. The local child of the Great Mother, "a small and inferior deity who took the roles of son and consort", whose Minoan name the Greeks Hellenized as Velchanos, was in time assumed as an epithet by Zeus, as transpired at many other sites, and he came to be venerated in Crete as Zeus Velchanos ("boy-Zeus"), often simply the "Kouros".


title: Zeus

text: In Crete, Zeus was worshipped at a number of caves at Knossos, Ida and Palaikastro. In the Hellenistic period a small sanctuary dedicated to Zeus Velchanos was founded at the Hagia Triada site of a long-ruined Minoan palace. Broadly contemporary coins from Phaistos show the form under which he was worshiped: a youth sits among the branches of a tree, with a cockerel on his knees. On other Cretan coins Velchanos is represented as an eagle and in association with a goddess celebrating a mystic marriage. Inscriptions at Gortyn and Lyttos record a "Velchania" festival, showing that Velchanios was still widely venerated in Hellenistic Crete.


title: Zeus

text: The stories of Minos and Epimenides suggest that these caves were once used for incubatory divination by kings and priests. The dramatic setting of Plato's "Laws" is along the pilgrimage-route to one such site, emphasizing archaic Cretan knowledge. On Crete, Zeus was represented in art as a long-haired youth rather than a mature adult and hymned as "ho megas kouros", "the great youth". Ivory statuettes of the "Divine Boy" were unearthed near the Labyrinth at Knossos by Sir Arthur Evans. With the Kouretes, a band of ecstatic armed dancers, he presided over the rigorous military-athletic training and secret rites of the Cretan "paideia".


title: Zeus

text: The myth of the death of Cretan Zeus, localised in numerous mountain sites though only mentioned in a comparatively late source, Callimachus, together with the assertion of Antoninus Liberalis that a fire shone forth annually from the birth-cave the infant shared with a mythic swarm of bees, suggests that Velchanos had been an annual vegetative spirit.


title: Zeus

text: The Hellenistic writer Euhemerus apparently proposed a theory that Zeus had actually been a great king of Crete and that posthumously, his glory had slowly turned him into a deity. The works of Euhemerus himself have not survived, but Christian patristic writers took up the suggestion.


title: Zeus

text: The epithet Zeus Lykaios (Λύκαιος; "wolf-Zeus") is assumed by Zeus only in connection with the archaic festival of the Lykaia on the slopes of Mount Lykaion ("Wolf Mountain"), the tallest peak in rustic Arcadia; Zeus had only a formal connection with the rituals and myths of this primitive rite of passage with an ancient threat of cannibalism and the possibility of a werewolf transformation for the ephebes who were the participants. Near the ancient ash-heap where the sacrifices took place was a forbidden precinct in which, allegedly, no shadows were ever cast.


title: Zeus

text: According to Plato, a particular clan would gather on the mountain to make a sacrifice every nine years to Zeus Lykaios, and a single morsel of human entrails would be intermingled with the animal's. Whoever ate the human flesh was said to turn into a wolf, and could only regain human form if he did not eat again of human flesh until the next nine-year cycle had ended. There were games associated with the Lykaia, removed in the fourth century to the first urbanization of Arcadia, Megalopolis; there the major temple was dedicated to Zeus Lykaios.


title: Zeus

text: There is, however, the crucial detail that "Lykaios" or "Lykeios" (epithets of Zeus and Apollo) may derive from Proto-Greek *, "light", a noun still attested in compounds such as , "twilight", , "year" (lit. "light's course") etc. This, Cook argues, brings indeed much new 'light' to the matter as Achaeus, the contemporary tragedian of Sophocles, spoke of Zeus Lykaios as "starry-eyed", and this Zeus Lykaios may just be the Arcadian Zeus, son of Aether, described by Cicero. Again under this new signification may be seen Pausanias' descriptions of Lykosoura being 'the first city that ever the sun beheld', and of the altar of Zeus, at the summit of Mount Lykaion, before which stood two columns bearing gilded eagles and 'facing the sun-rise'. Further Cook sees only the tale of Zeus' sacred precinct at Mount Lykaion allowing no shadows referring to Zeus as 'god of light' (Lykaios).


title: Zeus

text: Although etymology indicates that Zeus was originally a sky god, many Greek cities honored a local Zeus who lived underground. Athenians and Sicilians honored Zeus Meilichios (Μειλίχιος; "kindly" or "honeyed") while other cities had Zeus Chthonios ("earthy"), Zeus Katachthonios (Καταχθόνιος; "under-the-earth") and Zeus Plousios ("wealth-bringing"). These deities might be represented as snakes or in human form in visual art, or, for emphasis as both together in one image. They also received offerings of black animal victims sacrificed into sunken pits, as did chthonic deities like Persephone and Demeter, and also the heroes at their tombs. Olympian gods, by contrast, usually received white victims sacrificed upon raised altars.


title: Zeus

text: In some cases, cities were not entirely sure whether the "daimon" to whom they sacrificed was a hero or an underground Zeus. Thus the shrine at Lebadaea in Boeotia might belong to the hero Trophonius or to Zeus Trephonius ("the nurturing"), depending on whether you believe Pausanias, or Strabo. The hero Amphiaraus was honored as Zeus Amphiaraus at Oropus outside of Thebes, and the Spartans even had a shrine to Zeus Agamemnon. Ancient Molossian kings sacrificed to Zeus Areius (Αρειος). Strabo mention that at Tralles there was the Zeus Larisaeus (Λαρισαιος). In Ithome, they honored the Zeus Ithomatas, they had a sanctuary and a statue of Zeus and also held an annual festival in honour of Zeus which was called Ithomaea (ἰθώμαια).


title: Zeus

text: Hecatomphonia (), meaning killing of a hundred, from ἑκατόν “a hundred” and φονεύω “to kill”. It was a custom of Messenians, at which they offered sacrifice to Zeus when any of them had killed a hundred enemies. Aristomenes have offered three times this sacrifice at the Messenian wars against Sparta.


title: Zeus

text: In addition to the Panhellenic titles and conceptions listed above, local cults maintained their own idiosyncratic ideas about the king of gods and men. With the epithet Zeus Aetnaeus he was worshiped on Mount Aetna, where there was a statue of him, and a local festival called the Aetnaea in his honor. Other examples are listed below. As Zeus Aeneius or Zeus Aenesius (Αινησιος), he was worshiped in the island of Cephalonia, where he had a temple on Mount Aenos.


title: Zeus

text: Although most oracle sites were usually dedicated to Apollo, the heroes, or various goddesses like Themis, a few oracular sites were dedicated to Zeus. In addition, some foreign oracles, such as Baʿal's at Heliopolis, were associated with Zeus in Greek or Jupiter in Latin.


title: Zeus

text: The cult of Zeus at Dodona in Epirus, where there is evidence of religious activity from the second millennium BC onward, centered on a sacred oak. When the "Odyssey" was composed (circa 750 BC), divination was done there by barefoot priests called "Selloi", who lay on the ground and observed the rustling of the leaves and branches. By the time Herodotus wrote about Dodona, female priestesses called peleiades ("doves") had replaced the male priests.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus' consort at Dodona was not Hera, but the goddess Dione — whose name is a feminine form of "Zeus". Her status as a titaness suggests to some that she may have been a more powerful pre-Hellenic deity, and perhaps the original occupant of the oracle.


title: Zeus

text: The oracle of Ammon at the Siwa Oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt did not lie within the bounds of the Greek world before Alexander's day, but it already loomed large in the Greek mind during the archaic era: Herodotus mentions consultations with Zeus Ammon in his account of the Persian War. Zeus Ammon was especially favored at Sparta, where a temple to him existed by the time of the Peloponnesian War.


title: Zeus

text: After Alexander made a trek into the desert to consult the oracle at Siwa, the figure arose in the Hellenistic imagination of a Libyan Sibyl.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus was identified with the Roman god Jupiter and associated in the syncretic classical imagination (see "interpretatio graeca") with various other deities, such as the Egyptian Ammon and the Etruscan Tinia. He, along with Dionysus, absorbed the role of the chief Phrygian god Sabazios in the syncretic deity known in Rome as Sabazius. The Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes erected a statue of Zeus Olympios in the Judean Temple in Jerusalem. Hellenizing Jews referred to this statue as Baal Shamen (in English, Lord of Heaven).


title: Zeus

text: Zeus is also identified with the Hindu deity Indra. Not only they are the king of gods, but their weapon - thunder is similar.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus is occasionally conflated with the Hellenic sun god, Helios, who is sometimes either directly referred to as Zeus' eye, or clearly implied as such. Hesiod, for instance, describes Zeus' eye as effectively the sun. This perception is possibly derived from earlier Proto-Indo-European religion, in which the sun is occasionally envisioned as the eye of *"Dyḗus Pḥtḗr" (see Hvare-khshaeta). Euripides in his now lost tragedy "Mysians" described Zeus as "sun-eyed", and Helios is said elsewhere to be "the brilliant eye of Zeus, giver of life". In another of Euripides' tragedies, "Medea", the chorus refers to Helios as "light born from Zeus."


title: Zeus

text: Although the connection of Helios to Zeus does not seem to have basis in early Greek cult and writings, nevertheless there are many examples of direct identification in later times. The Hellenistic period gave birth to Serapis, a Greco-Egyptian deity conceived as a chthonic avatar of Zeus, whose solar nature is indicated by the sun crown and rays the Greeks depicted him with. Frequent joint dedications to "Zeus-Serapis-Helios" have been found all over the Mediterranean, for example, the Anastasy papyrus (now housed in the British Museum equates Helios to not just Zeus and Serapis but also Mithras, and a series of inscriptions from Trachonitis give evidence of the cult of "Zeus the Unconquered Sun". There is evidence of Zeus being worshipped as a solar god in the Aegean island of Amorgos, based on a lacunose inscription "" ("Zeus the Sun"), meaning sun elements of Zeus' worship could be as early as the fifth century BC.


title: Zeus

text: In Neoplatonism, Zeus' relation to the gods familiar from mythology is taught as the Demiurge or Divine Mind, specifically within Plotinus's work the "Enneads" and the "Platonic Theology" of Proclus.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus is mentioned in the New Testament twice, first in Acts 14:8–13: When the people living in Lystra saw the Apostle Paul heal a lame man, they considered Paul and his partner Barnabas to be gods, identifying Paul with Hermes and Barnabas with Zeus, even trying to offer them sacrifices with the crowd. Two ancient inscriptions discovered in 1909 near Lystra testify to the worship of these two gods in that city. One of the inscriptions refers to the "priests of Zeus", and the other mentions "Hermes Most Great" and "Zeus the sun-god".


title: Zeus

text: The second occurrence is in Acts 28:11: the name of the ship in which the prisoner Paul set sail from the island of Malta bore the figurehead "Sons of Zeus" aka Castor and Pollux (Dioscuri).


title: Zeus

text: The deuterocanonical book of 2 Maccabees 6:1, 2 talks of King Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), who in his attempt to stamp out the Jewish religion, directed that the temple at Jerusalem be profaned and rededicated to Zeus (Jupiter Olympius).


title: Zeus

text: Pistis Sophia, a Gnostic text discovered in 1773 and possibly written between the 3rd and 4th centuries AD alludes to Zeus. He appears there as one of five grand rulers gathered together by a divine figure named Yew.


title: Zeus

text: Zeus was portrayed by Axel Ringvall in "", the first known film adaption to feature Zeus; Niall MacGinnis in "Jason and the Argonauts" and Angus MacFadyen in the 2000 remake; Laurence Olivier in the original "Clash of the Titans", and Liam Neeson in the 2010 remake, along with the 2012 sequel "Wrath of the Titans"; Rip Torn in the Disney animated feature "Hercules", Sean Bean in "" (2010). Russell Crowe portrays a character based on Zeus in Marvel Studios' "" (2022).


title: Zeus

text: Zeus was portrayed by Anthony Quinn in the 1990s TV series ""; Corey Burton in the TV series "Hercules"; Hakeem Kae-Kazim in ""; and Jason O'Mara in the Netflix animated series "Blood of Zeus".


title: Zeus

text: Zeus has been portrayed by Corey Burton in "God of War II", "God of War III", "", "PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale" & "Kingdom Hearts 3" and Eric Newsome in Dota 2. Zeus is also featured in the 2002 Ensemble Studios game "Age of Mythology" where he is one of 12 gods that can be worshipped by Greek players.


title: Zeus

text: Depictions of Zeus as a bull, the form he took when abducting Europa, are found on the Greek 2-euro coin and on the United Kingdom identity card for visa holders. Mary Beard, professor of Classics at Cambridge University, has criticised this for its apparent celebration of rape. A character based on the god was adapted by Marvel Comics creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, first appearing in 1949.


title: Gross domestic product

text: Gross domestic product (GDP) is a monetary measure of the market value of all the final goods and services produced and sold (not resold) in a specific time period by countries. Due to its complex and subjective nature this measure is often revised before being considered a reliable indicator. GDP (nominal) per capita does not, however, reflect differences in the cost of living and the inflation rates of the countries; therefore, using a basis of GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) may be more useful when comparing living standards between nations, while nominal GDP is more useful comparing national economies on the international market. Total GDP can also be broken down into the contribution of each industry or sector of the economy. The ratio of GDP to the total population of the region is the per capita GDP (also called the Mean Standard of Living).


title: Gross domestic product

text: GDP definitions are maintained by a number of national and international economic organizations. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) defines GDP as "an aggregate measure of production equal to the sum of the gross values added of all resident and institutional units engaged in production and services (plus any taxes, and minus any subsidies, on products not included in the value of their outputs)". An IMF publication states that, "GDP measures the monetary value of final goods and services—that are bought by the final user—produced in a country in a given period of time (say a quarter or a year)."


title: Gross domestic product

text: GDP is often used as a metric for international comparisons as well as a broad measure of economic progress. It is often considered to be the "world's most powerful statistical indicator of national development and progress". However, critics of the growth imperative often argue that GDP measures were never intended to measure progress, and leave out key other externalities, such as resource extraction, environmental impact and unpaid domestic work. Critics frequently propose alternative economic models such as doughnut economics which use other measures of success or alternative indicators such as the OECD's Better Life Index as better approaches to measuring the effect of the economy on human development and well being.


title: Gross domestic product

text: William Petty came up with a basic concept of GDP to attack landlords against unfair taxation during warfare between the Dutch and the English between 1654 and 1676. Charles Davenant developed the method further in 1695. The modern concept of GDP was first developed by Simon Kuznets for a 1934 U.S. Congress report, where he warned against its use as a measure of welfare (see below under "limitations and criticisms"). After the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, GDP became the main tool for measuring a country's economy. At that time gross national product (GNP) was the preferred estimate, which differed from GDP in that it measured production by a country's citizens at home and abroad rather than its 'resident institutional units' (see OECD definition above). The switch from GNP to GDP in the United States occurred in 1991. The role that measurements of GDP played in World War II was crucial to the subsequent political acceptance of GDP values as indicators of national development and progress. A crucial role was played here by the U.S. Department of Commerce under Milton Gilbert where ideas from Kuznets were embedded into institutions.


title: Gross domestic product

text: The history of the concept of GDP should be distinguished from the history of changes in many ways of estimating it. The value added by firms is relatively easy to calculate from their accounts, but the value added by the public sector, by financial industries, and by intangible asset creation is more complex. These activities are increasingly important in developed economies, and the international conventions governing their estimation and their inclusion or exclusion in GDP regularly change in an attempt to keep up with industrial advances. In the words of one academic economist, "The actual number for GDP is, therefore, the product of a vast patchwork of statistics and a complicated set of processes carried out on the raw data to fit them to the conceptual framework."


title: Gross domestic product

text: GDP became truly global in 1993 when China officially adopted it as its indicator of economic performance. Previously, China had relied on a Marxist-inspired national accounting system.


title: Gross domestic product

text: GDP can be determined in three ways, all of which should, theoretically, give the same result. They are the production (or output or value added) approach, the income approach, and the speculated expenditure approach. It is representative of the total output and income within an economy.


title: Gross domestic product

text: The most direct of the three is the production approach, which sums the outputs of every class of enterprise to arrive at the total. The expenditure approach works on the principle that all of the product must be bought by somebody, therefore the value of the total product must be equal to people's total expenditures in buying things. The income approach works on the principle that the incomes of the productive factors ("producers", colloquially) must be equal to the value of their product, and determines GDP by finding the sum of all producers' incomes.


title: Gross domestic product

text: Also known as the Value Added Approach, it calculates how much value is contributed at each stage of production.


title: Gross domestic product

text: This approach mirrors the OECD(Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) definition given above.


title: Gross domestic product

text: Value of output = value of the total sales of goods and services plus value of changes in the inventory.


title: Gross domestic product

text: The sum of the gross value added in the various economic activities is known as "GDP at factor cost".


title: Gross domestic product

text: For measuring output of domestic product, economic activities (i.e. industries) are classified into various sectors. After classifying economic activities, the output of each sector is calculated by any of the following two methods:


title: Gross domestic product

text: The value of output of all sectors is then added to get the gross value of output at factor cost. Subtracting each sector's intermediate consumption from gross output value gives the GVA (=GDP) at factor cost. Adding indirect tax minus subsidies to GVA (GDP) at factor cost gives the "GVA (GDP) at producer prices".


title: Gross domestic product

text: The second way of estimating GDP is to use "the sum of primary incomes distributed by resident producer units".


title: Gross domestic product

text: If GDP is calculated this way it is sometimes called gross domestic income (GDI), or GDP (I). GDI should provide the same amount as the expenditure method described later. By definition, GDI is equal to GDP. In practice, however, measurement errors will make the two figures slightly off when reported by national statistical agencies.


title: Gross domestic product

text: This method measures GDP by adding incomes that firms pay households for factors of production they hire - wages for labour, interest for capital, rent for land and profits for entrepreneurship.


title: Gross domestic product

text: Total income can be subdivided according to various schemes, leading to various formulae for GDP measured by the income approach. A common one is:


title: Gross domestic product

text: The sum of COE, GOS and GMI is called total factor income; it is the income of all of the factors of production in society. It measures the value of GDP at factor (basic) prices. The difference between basic prices and final prices (those used in the expenditure calculation) is the total taxes and subsidies that the government has levied or paid on that production. So adding taxes less subsidies on production and imports converts GDP(I) at factor cost to GDP(I) at final prices.


title: Gross domestic product

text: The third way to estimate GDP is to calculate the sum of the final uses of goods and services (all uses except intermediate consumption) measured in purchasers' prices.


title: Gross domestic product

text: Market goods that are produced are purchased by someone. In the case where a good is produced and unsold, the standard accounting convention is that the producer has bought the good from themselves. Therefore, measuring the total expenditure used to buy things is a way of measuring production. This is known as the expenditure method of calculating GDP.


title: Gross domestic product

text: GDP (Y) is the sum of consumption (C), investment (I), government Expenditures (G) and net exports (X – M).


title: Gross domestic product

text: Note that C, I, and G are expenditures on final goods and services; expenditures on intermediate goods and services do not count. (Intermediate goods and services are those used by businesses to produce other goods and services within the accounting year.) So for example if a car manufacturer buys auto parts, assembles the car and sells it, only the final car sold is counted towards the GDP. Meanwhile, if a person buys replacement auto parts to install them on their car, those are counted towards the GDP.


title: Gross domestic product

text: According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, which is responsible for calculating the national accounts in the United States, "In general, the source data for the expenditures components are considered more reliable than those for the income components [see income method, above]."


title: Gross domestic product

text: GDP can be contrasted with gross national product (GNP) or, as it is now known, gross national income (GNI). The difference is that GDP defines its scope according to location, while GNI defines its scope according to ownership. In a global context, world GDP and world GNI are, therefore, equivalent terms.


title: Gross domestic product

text: GDP is product produced within a country's borders; GNI is product produced by enterprises owned by a country's citizens. The two would be the same if all of the productive enterprises in a country were owned by its own citizens, and those citizens did not own productive enterprises in any other countries. In practice, however, foreign ownership makes GDP and GNI non-identical. Production within a country's borders, but by an enterprise owned by somebody outside the country, counts as part of its GDP but not its GNI; on the other hand, production by an enterprise located outside the country, but owned by one of its citizens, counts as part of its GNI but not its GDP.


title: Gross domestic product

text: For example, the GNI of the USA is the value of output produced by American-owned firms, regardless of where the firms are located. Similarly, if a country becomes increasingly in debt, and spends large amounts of income servicing this debt this will be reflected in a decreased GNI but not a decreased GDP. Similarly, if a country sells off its resources to entities outside their country this will also be reflected over time in decreased GNI, but not decreased GDP. This would make the use of GDP more attractive for politicians in countries with increasing national debt and decreasing assets.


title: Gross domestic product

text: Gross national income (GNI) equals GDP plus income receipts from the rest of the world minus income payments to the rest of the world.


title: Gross domestic product

text: In 1991, the United States switched from using GNP to using GDP as its primary measure of production.


title: Gross domestic product

text: The relationship between United States GDP and GNP is shown in table 1.7.5 of the "National Income and Product Accounts".


title: Gross domestic product

text: Another example that amplifies the difference among GDP and GNI are the comparison of developed and developing country indicators. The GDP of Japan for 2020 is 5,040,107.75 USD (in a million). Predictably, as a developed country, Japan has a higher GNI of 182,779.46 USD (in million), which is indicative that the production level in the country is higher than that of national production. On the other hand, the case with Armenia is the opposite, with GDP being lower than GNI by 196.12 USD (in million). This demonstrates that countries receive investments and foreign aid from abroad.


title: Gross domestic product

text: The international standard for measuring GDP is contained in the book "System of National Accounts" (2008), which was prepared by representatives of the International Monetary Fund, European Union, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, United Nations and World Bank. The publication is normally referred to as SNA2008 to distinguish it from the previous edition published in 1993 (SNA93) or 1968 (called SNA68)


title: Gross domestic product

text: SNA2008 provides a set of rules and procedures for the measurement of national accounts. The standards are designed to be flexible, to allow for differences in local statistical needs and conditions.


title: Gross domestic product

text: Within each country GDP is normally measured by a national government statistical agency, as private sector organizations normally do not have access to the information required (especially information on expenditure and production by governments).


title: Gross domestic product

text: The raw GDP figure as given by the equations above is called the nominal, historical, or current, GDP. When one compares GDP figures from one year to another, it is desirable to compensate for changes in the value of money – for the effects of inflation or deflation. To make it more meaningful for year-to-year comparisons, it may be multiplied by the ratio between the value of money in the year the GDP was measured and the value of money in a base year.


title: Gross domestic product

text: For example, suppose a country's GDP in 1990 was and its GDP in 2000 was . Suppose also that inflation had halved the value of its currency over that period. To meaningfully compare its GDP in 2000 to its GDP in 1990, we could multiply the GDP in 2000 by one-half, to make it relative to 1990 as a base year. The result would be that the GDP in 2000 equals × = , "in 1990 monetary terms." We would see that the country's GDP had realistically increased 50 percent over that period, not 200 percent, as it might appear from the raw GDP data. The GDP adjusted for changes in money value in this way is called the real, or constant, GDP.


title: Gross domestic product

text: The factor used to convert GDP from current to constant values in this way is called the "GDP deflator". Unlike consumer price index, which measures inflation or deflation in the price of household consumer goods, the GDP deflator measures changes in the prices of all domestically produced goods and services in an economy including investment goods and government services, as well as household consumption goods.


title: Gross domestic product

text: Constant-GDP figures allow us to calculate a GDP growth rate, which indicates how much a country's production has increased (or decreased, if the growth rate is negative) compared to the previous year.


title: Gross domestic product

text: Another thing that it may be desirable to account for is population growth. If a country's GDP doubled over a certain period, but its population tripled, the increase in GDP may not mean that the standard of living increased for the country's residents; the average person in the country is producing less than they were before. "Per-capita GDP" is a measure to account for population growth.


title: Gross domestic product

text: The major advantage of GDP per capita as an indicator of standard of living is that it is measured frequently, widely, and consistently. It is measured frequently in that most countries provide information on GDP on a quarterly basis, allowing trends to be seen quickly. It is measured widely in that some measure of GDP is available for almost every country in the world, allowing inter-country comparisons. It is measured consistently in that the technical definition of GDP is relatively consistent among countries.


title: Gross domestic product

text: GDP does not include several factors that influence the standard of living. In particular, it fails to account for:


title: Gross domestic product

text: It can be argued that GDP per capita as an indicator standard of living is correlated with these factors, capturing them indirectly. As a result, GDP per capita as a standard of living is a continued usage because most people have a fairly accurate idea of what it is and know it is tough to come up with quantitative measures for such constructs as happiness, quality of life, and well-being.


title: Gross domestic product

text: Simon Kuznets, the economist who developed the first comprehensive set of measures of national income, stated in his second report to the U.S. Congress in 1937, in a section titled "Uses and Abuses of National Income Measurements":


title: Gross domestic product

text: All these qualifications upon estimates of national income as an index of productivity are just as important when income measurements are interpreted from the point of view of economic welfare. But in the latter case additional difficulties will be suggested to anyone who wants to penetrate below the surface of total figures and market values. Economic welfare cannot be adequately measured unless the personal distribution of income is known. And no income measurement undertakes to estimate the reverse side of income, that is, the intensity and unpleasantness of effort going into the earning of income. The welfare of a nation can, therefore, scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as defined above. In 1962, Kuznets stated:Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between costs and returns, and between the short and long run. Goals for more growth should specify more growth of what and for what.


title: Gross domestic product

text: Ever since the development of GDP, multiple observers have pointed out limitations of using GDP as the overarching measure of economic and social progress. For example, many environmentalists argue that GDP is a poor measure of social progress because it does not take into account harm to the environment. Furthermore, the GDP does not consider human health nor the educational aspect of a population. American politician Robert F. Kennedy criticized the GDP as a measure of "“everything except that which makes life worthwhile”". He said that it ""does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play.”"


title: Gross domestic product

text: Although a high or rising level of GDP is often associated with increased economic and social progress, the opposite sometimes occurs. For example, Jean Drèze and Amartya Sen have pointed out that an increase in GDP or in GDP growth does not necessarily lead to a higher standard of living, particularly in areas such as healthcare and education. Another important area that does not necessarily improve along with GDP is political liberty, which is most notable in China, where GDP growth is strong yet political liberties are heavily restricted. GDP does not account for the distribution of income among the residents of a country, because GDP is merely an aggregate measure. An economy may be highly developed or growing rapidly, but also contain a wide gap between the rich and the poor in a society. These inequalities often occur on the lines of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, or other minority status within countries. This can lead to misleading characterizations of economic well-being if the income distribution is heavily skewed toward the high end, as the poorer residents will not directly benefit from the overall level of wealth and income generated in their country (their purchasing power can decline, even as the mean GDP per capita rises). GDP per capita measures (like aggregate GDP measures) do not account for income distribution (and tend to overstate the average income per capita). For example, South Africa during apartheid ranked high in terms of GDP per capita, but the benefits of this immense wealth and income were not shared equally among its citizens. An inequality which the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 10 amongst other global initiatives aims to address.


title: Gross domestic product

text: GDP excludes the value of household and other unpaid work. Some, including Martha Nussbaum, argue that this value should be included in measuring GDP, as household labor is largely a substitute for goods and services that would otherwise be purchased with money. Even under conservative estimates, the value of unpaid labor in Australia has been calculated to be over 50% of the country's GDP. A later study analyzed this value in other countries, with results ranging from a low of about 15% in Canada (using conservative estimates) to high of nearly 70% in the United Kingdom (using more liberal estimates). For the United States, the value was estimated to be between about 20% on the low end to nearly 50% on the high end, depending on the methodology being used. Because many public policies are shaped by GDP calculations and by the related field of national accounts, public policy might differ if unpaid work were included in total GDP. Some economists have advocated for changes in the way public policies are formed and implemented.


title: Gross domestic product

text: The UK's Natural Capital Committee highlighted the shortcomings of GDP in its advice to the UK Government in 2013, pointing out that GDP "focuses on flows, not stocks. As a result, an economy can run down its assets yet, at the same time, record high levels of GDP growth, until a point is reached where the depleted assets act as a check on future growth". They then went on to say that "it is apparent that the recorded GDP growth rate overstates the sustainable growth rate. Broader measures of wellbeing and wealth are needed for this and there is a danger that short-term decisions based solely on what is currently measured by national accounts may prove to be costly in the long-term".


title: Gross domestic product

text: It has been suggested that countries that have authoritarian governments, such as the People's Republic of China, and Russia, inflate their GDP figures.


title: Gross domestic product

text: Instances of GDP measures have been considered numbers that are artificial constructs. In 2020 scientists, as part of a World Scientists' Warning to Humanity-associated series, warned that worldwide growth in affluence in terms of GDP-metrics has increased resource use and pollutant emissions with affluent citizens of the world – in terms of e.g. resource-intensive consumption – being responsible for most negative environmental impacts and central to a transition to safer, sustainable conditions. They summarised evidence, presented solution approaches and stated that far-reaching lifestyle changes need to complement technological advancements and that existing societies, economies and cultures incite consumption expansion and that the structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies inhibits societal change. Sarah Arnold, Senior Economist at the New Economics Foundation (NEF) stated that "GDP includes activities that are detrimental to our economy and society in the long term, such as deforestation, strip mining, overfishing and so on". The number of trees that are net lost annually is estimated to be approximately 10 billion. The global average annual deforested land in the 2015–2020 demi-decade was 10 million hectares and the average annual net forest area loss in the 2000–2010 decade 4.7 million hectares, according to the Global Forest Resources Assessment 2020. According to one study, depending on the level of wealth inequality, higher GDP-growth can be associated with more deforestation. In 2019 "agriculture and agribusiness" accounted for 24 % of the GDP of Brazil, where a large share of annual net tropical forest loss occurred and is associated with sizable portions of this economic activity domain. The number of obese adults was approximately 600 million (12%) in 2015. In 2013 scientists reported that large improvements in health only lead to modest long-term increases in GDP per capita. After developing an abstract metric similar to GDP, the Center for Partnership Studies highlighted that GDP "and other metrics that reflect and perpetuate them" may not be useful for facilitating the production of products and provision of services that are useful – or comparatively more useful – to society, and instead may "actually encourage, rather than discourage, destructive activities". Steve Cohen of the Earth Institute elucidated that while GDP does not distinguish between different activities (or lifestyles), "all consumption behaviors are not created equal and do not have the same impact on environmental sustainability". Johan Rockström, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, noted that "it's difficult to see if the current G.D.P.-based model of economic growth can go hand-in-hand with rapid cutting of emissions", which nations have agreed to attempt under the Paris Agreement in order to mitigate real-world impacts of climate change. Some have pointed out that GDP did not adapt to sociotechnical changes to give a more accurate picture of the modern economy and does not encapsulate the value of new activities such as delivering price-free information and entertainment on social media. In 2017 Diane Coyle explained that GDP excludes much unpaid work, writing that "many people contribute free digital work such as writing open-source software that can substitute for marketed equivalents, and it clearly has great economic value despite a price of zero", which constitutes a common criticism "of the reliance on GDP as the measure of economic success" especially after the emergence of the digital economy. Similarly GDP does not value or distinguish for environmental protection. A 2020 study found that "poor regions' GDP grows faster by attracting more polluting production after connection to China's expressway system. GDP may not be a tool capable of recognizing how much natural capital agents of the economy are building or protecting.


title: Gross domestic product

text: A peer-reviewed study published in the "Journal of Political Economy" in October 2022 found signs of manipulation of economic growth statistics in the majority of countries. According to the study, this mainly applied to countries that were governed semi-authoritarian/authoritarian or did not have a functioning separation of powers. The study took the annual growth in brightness of lights at night, as measured by satellites, and compared it to officially reported economic growth. Authoritarian states had consistently higher reported growth in GDP than their growth in night lights would suggest. An effect that also cannot be explained by different economic structures, sector composition or other factors. Incorrect growth statistics can also falsify indicators such as GDP or GDP per capita.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: West Side Story is a 2021 American musical romantic drama film directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg from a screenplay by Tony Kushner. It is the second feature-length adaptation of the 1957 stage musical of the same name. It stars Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler in her film debut with Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, Mike Faist and Rita Moreno in supporting roles. Moreno, who starred in the 1961 film adaptation, also served as an executive producer alongside Kushner. The film features music composed by Leonard Bernstein with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: The film entered development in 2014 at 20th Century Fox; Kushner began writing the screenplay in 2017. In January 2018, Spielberg was hired and casting began that September. Justin Peck choreographed the dance sequences. Principal photography occurred in New York and New Jersey; filming began in July 2019 and ran for two months.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: "West Side Story" had its world premiere at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater in New York City on November 29, 2021, three days after Sondheim's death. The film was later theatrically distributed by 20th Century Studios in the United States on December 10, after being delayed a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The film received critical acclaim with praise for the performances of the cast, Spielberg's direction, and the cinematography, with some critics deeming it superior to the 1961 film. It was named one of the top ten films of 2021 by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute. The film grossed $76 million against a $100 million production budget, making it a box-office bomb. Among its multiple awards and nominations, it received seven nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, with DeBose winning Best Supporting Actress. It also received four nominations at the 79th Golden Globe Awards, winning three, including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical for Zegler, and Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture for DeBose.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: In 1957, the Jets are a gang of white youths that fight the Puerto Rican Sharks for control of San Juan Hill on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Officer Krupke and Lieutenant Schrank break up the brief skirmish, telling the gangs that their conflict is pointless since the neighborhood will be imminently demolished to make way for Lincoln Center. The gangs are too proud to care, and Jet leader Riff proposes a "rumble" (fight) between the two gangs. He approaches his friend Tony, who is on parole, for help. Tony refuses, wishing to turn over a new leaf with the help of Valentina, the Puerto Rican owner of Doc's general store. Meanwhile, Maria, Shark leader Bernardo's sister, is betrothed to his friend Chino but yearns for independence. At a local dance, Tony and Maria meet and fall in love. This angers Bernardo, who agrees to Riff's terms for a rumble if Tony attends. Tony voices his love for Maria and the couple meets on Maria's fire escape, promising to see each other the next day.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Bernardo and his girlfriend Anita argue about life in New York compared to Puerto Rico, with Anita believing in the American Dream in spite of the pessimistic and rude Bernardo. The police interrogate the Jets about the rumble, but they deny any knowledge. Tony takes Maria on a date to the Cloisters in Upper Manhattan. He reveals he was imprisoned for a year after he nearly beat a rival gang member to death, which scared him into reforming. Maria makes Tony promise to stop the rumble, and they pledge their love to one another. Tony tries to convince Riff to call off the rumble by stealing his newly-bought gun, but the Jets steal it back. Schrank orders Krupke and the police to stop the rumble. Despite their and Tony's efforts, the rumble continues and Bernardo fatally stabs Riff. Tony, in a fit of rage, stabs Bernardo and kills him. The gangs flee when the police arrive, while Chino finds Riff's gun.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Maria gushes about her love for Tony at work, but Chino arrives and reveals Tony killed Bernardo. Maria is distraught, but meeting Tony later she refuses to let him turn himself in as it would mean losing him as well, and they plot to run away together. Valentina learns of Bernardo's death and reflects on her interracial relationship with the late Doc. Meanwhile, Chino plots to kill Tony against the Sharks' protests. After identifying Bernardo's body at the morgue, Anita returns home to see Maria with Tony as he leaves the apartment. Anita argues with Maria but accepts that she and Tony are in love. While Schrank interrogates Maria about Tony's whereabouts, she sends Anita to warn him about Chino. However, Anita encounters the Jets, who shout racial slurs and attempt to gang rape her, but Valentina intervenes. Traumatized, Anita spitefully says Chino killed Maria and vows to return to Puerto Rico, giving up all hope on her American dream. Valentina condemns the Jets, who disperse in shame.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Valentina informs Tony of Anita's statements, and he runs into the streets begging for Chino to kill him. Maria arrives to his relief, but Chino emerges and shoots Tony; he dies in Maria's arms. Devastated, Maria takes the gun and aims it at the gathered Jets and Sharks, berating them for the senseless deaths their conflict caused, before tearfully dropping the gun. As the police arrive to arrest Chino, the gangs assemble together to carry Tony's body into Doc's with Maria following, the feud finally over.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Three of the Jets from the 1961 film of "West Side Story", Harvey Evans, who portrayed Mouthpiece, Bert Michaels, who played Snowboy, and David Bean, who played Tiger, appear as extras. Andréa Burns, who played Maria in the 1992–1993 European Tour of the musical, appears as Fausta.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: In March 2014, Steven Spielberg first seriously expressed interest in directing an adaptation of "West Side Story", prompting 20th Century Fox to acquire the rights to the project. Tony Kushner, who previously worked with Spielberg on "Munich" (2005) and "Lincoln" (2012), revealed in a July 2017 interview that he was writing the screenplay for the film, stating he would be leaving the musical numbers intact, and that the story would be closer to the original stage musical than to the 1961 film. In a 2020 interview, Spielberg told "Vanity Fair": ""West Side Story" was actually the first piece of popular music our family ever allowed into the home. I ... fell completely in love with it as a kid". Spielberg would ultimately dedicate the film to his father, Arnold, who died during production at age 103.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: The following year, he further explained why he felt the time had come for a new film adaptation of the musical: "Divisions between un-likeminded people is as old as time itself. ... And the divisions between the Sharks and the Jets in 1957, which inspired the musical, were profound. But not as divided as we find ourselves today. It turned out in the middle of the development of the script, things widened, which I think in a sense, sadly, made the story of those racial divides – not just territorial divides – more relevant to today's audience than perhaps it even was in 1957".


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: In January 2018, Spielberg was hired to direct the film while working on the completion of filming for "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny". This was followed a few days later with an open casting call issued for the characters Maria, Tony, Anita and Bernardo. Additional open casting calls were hosted in New York City in April, and in Orlando, Florida in May. In July, the fifth "Indiana Jones" film was pushed back, allowing Spielberg to begin pre-production on "West Side Story".


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Justin Peck was hired to choreograph the film in September, with Ansel Elgort cast in the film as Tony. In November, Eiza González emerged as a contender for the role of Anita. Rita Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 film, plays Valentina and also serves as an executive producer for the film. In January 2019, newcomer Rachel Zegler was picked from over 30,000 applicants to play Maria, with Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, and Josh Andrés Rivera also cast as Anita, Bernardo, and Chino, respectively. In March, Corey Stoll and Brian d'Arcy James joined the cast. A month later, the rest of the ensemble comprising the Jets and Sharks factions was announced.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Filming took place in Harlem and other Manhattan locations and in Flatlands, Brooklyn in New York City in July 2019. There were ten days of shooting in Paterson, New Jersey, where an outdoor set was built, in August. Filming also took place in Newark and other parts of Essex County, New Jersey. It wrapped on September 27 for a total of 79 days of shooting. All of the sets were constructed at a warehouse at Steiner Studios.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: As one of the film's executive producers, Moreno was on-set for a large portion of production, often consulting with Peck on choreography. Moreno described shooting the scene where Valentina saves Anita as particularly difficult, due to her own well-documented experiences with sexual assault in Hollywood, as well as the surreal challenge of saving a character she played six decades prior. The scene was rehearsed with an intimacy coordinator to ensure DeBose's safety during the scene: Moreno, who recalled crying hysterically and being unable to stop when she shot the same scene for the 1961 film, was surprised that such a position existed upon being told about it in a joint interview with her and DeBose. She also had the honor to do clapperboard for the film's famous "puddle shot" of Tony stepping into a large puddle of water and making it become a pool of rippling light while singing "Maria". That shot was the last to be filmed on the final day of principal photography, as it was a last-minute suggestion made by cinematographer Janusz Kamiński to Spielberg following completion of the Balcony scene.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: The beginning of "The Dance at the Gym" sequence involved three different shots stitched together to make it look like one continuous shot. Kamiński described that it "starts as Steadicam, bringing the actors down the hallway, then as soon as the doors open up, it transitions into a cable cam shot that goes up into the air and over to the other side of the gym". He went on to mention that its execution was also laid upon the film's lighting team: "We had our lights rigged on the dimmer so when the camera was turning around, some sections of the scene would dim out, another section would dim up with the lights. You set the light so it’s in one direction, then when you turn around, you have to either cut or relight or do lights in the dimming board so you can fade the lights in, or fade the lights out, so you can maintain the romance and beauty of the shot". Andy Aaron, who served as sound effects recordist, added that the dance footsteps during the sequence were recorded live on set, allowing those tracks to be used in the final sound mix without the music intruding. In conclusion, Kamiński added that the shot "gives a very clear indication to the audience what this particular scene will be about. It’s about two teams competing against each other in terms of which team has the better dancers, better performers, more charming and more enticing". This moment from the film went viral on social media, and filmmaker Guillermo del Toro described it as "extremely hard to execute".


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Spielberg and Sondheim initially wanted to cut "I Feel Pretty" from the film. Its presence in the original musical, right after the rumble, was largely done against the wishes of Sondheim: he and Bernstein had been instructed by the producers to add an upbeat song after intermission to start Act 2, and so the song was written in protest. Sondheim would later remark that he was embarrassed by its lyrical content, to the point that he allowed it to be cut from the 2020 Broadway revival directed by Ivo van Hove. Spielberg, likewise, questioned whether the upbeat song would still work without an intermission between it and the rumble. It was ultimately due to the intervention of Tony Kushner that the song remained, as Spielberg later explained, "Tony [Kushner] explained to me, and then I explained to Stephen... that this is the first time in our story that the entire audience is ahead of Maria's story. And the audience will feel very protective of her because we know she’s about to find out".


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Choreographer Justin Peck, cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, and Spielberg worked closely on how the film's choreography would work in concert with the camera. Spielberg was constantly present during the film's dance rehearsals and would use the camera on his hand-held iPhone to figure out how to frame the shots.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Peck noted that dance in movie-musicals had grown into something of a joke in the past several decades, with the 1961 film receiving some light mockery for depicting violent gang warfare with ballet movements. Mindful of the new film's more realistic approach to material, he chose to treat the dance as symbolic of the unity between the gangs: "We have to remember that it is still a musical and that there’s a unique kind of expression that exists in it. This isn't full blown realism, literal realism". Peck cites "Cool" as the dance sequence most indicative of this approach, combining virtuoso ballet movements with the dangerous violence of the scene in the fight over the gun.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: The film does not attempt to recreate the Jerome Robbins choreography used in most productions of the stage show and in the 1961 film. However, Peck and the creative team were mindful of Robbins' integral role in the movement language of the show, and occasionally reused Robbins movements for nostalgia. Spielberg cites the Rumble as an example: the scene initially reuses some of the Robbins choreography but as it grows more intense more of Peck's original choreography is used. Peck also highlighted the skirt flaring in "America" and Tony and Maria's dance at the gym as direct "quotes" of the Robbins choreography. "America", which in the 1961 film takes place on a rooftop at night, was restaged to take place on the streets of New York during the day. The shoot took 10 days at locations across Harlem, Queens, and Paterson. Ariana DeBose's dance shoes melted and had to be replaced multiple times throughout the shoot, due to a combination of hot weather and the intensity of the choreography.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Although a few dance doubles are credited in the film as they were required to be on standby for the underage actors, all of the film's actors performed their own dancing with no doubles. This included Ansel Elgort, who is a former student of the School of American Ballet.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Paul Tazewell, known for his work on "Hamilton" and "The Wiz Live!", served as costume designer for the film. For inspiration, he looked to a variety of sources including real-life photographs of 1950s life, some in color by Gordon Parks. To distinguish the two gangs from one another visually, he had the Jets dressed in cool-toned colors to reflect "the steel, the concrete, the streets of New York City as it was in the 1950s" and the Sharks in warm-toned colors to represent "where they've come from of Puerto Rico, of the island, having a tropical feel, many of the dresses of the Sharks, I reserved all of the floral pattern for that group for the Puerto Rican community".


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Spielberg initially approached his frequent collaborator John Williams to serve as the film's music director. Williams instead suggested composer David Newman and conductor Gustavo Dudamel. Newman arranged and adapted Bernstein's original score for the film, incorporating alterations originally made to Bernstein's Broadway score by Johnny Green for the 1961 film (e.g., interpolation of the "Cool" fugue motif into the "Prologue", the extended trumpet solo in "Mambo"). Dudamel conducted the New York Philharmonic during the film's recording sessions in 2019, with additional recording by the Los Angeles Philharmonic done during the COVID-19 pandemic the following year. Jeanine Tesori and Matt Sullivan served as vocal coach and music supervisor, respectively, while Williams served as music consultant. All of the songs were pre-recorded and used as playback on set, with the exceptions of "One Hand, One Heart", "Somewhere" and "A Boy like That/I Have a Love", which did not use the playback and were instead sung live on set. Portions of "Maria" were also sung live on set without the playback, as per Elgort's request.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: The soundtrack album was released digitally in Dolby Atmos by Hollywood Records on December 3, and physically on December 10, 2021.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: "West Side Story" was initially scheduled to be distributed in the United States on December 18, 2020 by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures through the 20th Century Studios label, but on September 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Disney delayed the release date to December 10, 2021, which coincided with the 60th anniversary of the release of the 1961 film. The film had an exclusive 45-day theatrical run, including engagements in Dolby Cinema and IMAX. An IMAX fan event, with a live Q&A with Spielberg and the cast, took place in IMAX theaters nationwide on December 6. "Deadline Hollywood" reported that Disney considered a limited release strategy for the film before expanding into wide release, but opted not to due to ramifications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in the exhibition market.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: The film was first screened for members of the cast, including Zegler, Faist, Andrés Rivera and some members of the ensemble, at the Daniel Koch Theater in Lincoln Center on November 17. The screening was one of Sondheim's final appearances before his death on November 26. It then screened for industry and critics at its world premiere on November 29 at Jazz at Lincoln Center's Rose Theater, followed by Los Angeles at the El Capitan Theatre on December 7.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: "West Side Story" became available to stream on Disney+ and HBO Max on March 2, 2022. The film was released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray, Blu-ray and DVD on March 15 by Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment through the 20th Century Studios Home Entertainment label.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: During the 93rd Academy Awards telecast in April 2021, DeBose introduced the film's teaser trailer, and Moreno later presented the Academy Award for Best Picture, commemorating the 1961 film's release and awards wins. The film's official trailer premiered on September 15 on ABC's "Good Morning America". An exclusive look at the film, featuring extended sneak peeks at the "Dance at the Gym" and "America" scenes, was presented at the 49th Annual American Music Awards on November 22, introduced by Elgort and Zegler.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: A book by Laurent Bouzereau about the making of the film, featuring interviews with the cast and crew, was released by Abrams Books on November 16 the same year. A television special, "Something's Coming: West Side Story – A Special Edition of 20/20", aired on ABC on December 5.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: "Deadline Hollywood" reported that the film was initially banned in all the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, believed likely due to the role of Anybodys being a transgender character, as played by non-binary actor iris menas. In some cases, Disney has allegedly refused to make cuts requested by censors. An earlier Disney release, "Eternals", was also banned in the GCC countries, except the United Arab Emirates albeit with some cuts to intimacy scenes. That film featured Marvel's first openly same-sex couple. The cast and creative team responded, with co-producer Kevin McCollum telling "The Hollywood Reporter": "I think we have to remember that during Shakespeare's time, at the height, the Puritans came in and tore all of the theaters down. You couldn't go to the theater, and yet Shakespeare survived. ... I believe that love will win, and this is a story about love, made with love, and what happens when you try to keep people from loving freely. ... I think we've done our jobs as artists to make this film, and the world will discover it even if certain cultures decide they don't want it in their borders". "West Side Story" eventually released in cinemas in the United Arab Emirates around a month later.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: A special presentation of the film accompanied by Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing the score live took place at the Hollywood Bowl on July 12 and 14, as part of its Summer 2022 season.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: "West Side Story" grossed $38.5million in the United States and Canada, and $37.5million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $76million. The film needed an estimated $300million in order to break even.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Worldwide, the film was initially projected to gross $22–31million in its opening weekend, including $12–17million in the United States and Canada. "Boxoffice Pro" projected the film would earn $14–22million in its opening weekend and around $55–85million from its total domestic box office run. It earned $800,000 domestically in Thursday previews, hinting that the film would flop in the opening weekend with contributing factors such as the reluctance to go to theaters amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, and the recent trend of musical films disappointing at the box-office, exemplified by "In the Heights" and "Dear Evan Hansen". The film made $4.1million on its opening day (including previews) and went on to debut to $10.6million, topping the box office but finishing below estimates, making it a box office failure. Audiences were 57% female and 52% over the age of 35; 52% were Non-Hispanic White, 30% Hispanic or Latino, 6% Black, and 12% Asian or of other origins. According to EntTelligence, around 800,000 people bought tickets to see the film during its opening weekend. Jeremy Fuster of "TheWrap" was hopeful that the film could recover throughout the Christmas season as a sleeper hit, similar to what happened with "The Greatest Showman" (2017), through ongoing positive word-of-mouth and awards-season buzz. In its second weekend, the film earned $3.7million, placing third behind "" and "Encanto". The film went on to make $2.8million in its third weekend, $2.2million in its fourth, and $1.4million in its fifth.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Outside the United States and Canada, the film made $4.4million in its opening weekend from 37 international markets, of which $1.3million came from IMAX. The highest-grossing countries were the United Kingdom ($1.7million), France ($1.1million), Germany ($300,000), Russia, and the Netherlands (both $200,000). The film earned $2.1million in its second weekend, $1.7million in its third, $1.9million in its fourth, $1.6million in its fifth, and another $1.6 million in its sixth.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: In his final week as Disney chairman in 2021, Bob Iger said the company "did a brilliant job marketing" the film, but speculated that its weak performance could be due to competition with streaming services, the cost of theater tickets, and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Kyle Buchanan of "The New York Times" blamed "the marketing campaign, which missed crucial opportunities", including leveraging Spielberg, "the movie's biggest name". Sarah Whitten of CNBC observed the film was targeted towards older audiences, who were less likely to go to theaters due to the pandemic, particularly with the rise in the Omicron variant. She also noted the film lacked big names in the cast (save for Ansel Elgort and Rita Moreno) and was released around the same time as "Spider-Man: No Way Home", all factors that could have hurt its ability to fare well at the box office.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: By March 20, 2022, according to "Samba TV", "West Side Story" had streamed on Disney+ and HBO Max in a combined 1.9 million households in the United States since the Oscar nomination announcements on February 8.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale, while those polled by PostTrak gave it an 88% overall positive score, with 70% saying they would definitely recommend it.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Chris Evangelista of "/Film" wrote: "Spielberg's "West Side Story" is a knock-out. A dynamite blend of old-school musical showmanship and modern sensibilities. It's one of the best movies of the year, and one of the best movies of the acclaimed filmmaker's career. Yes, really". Peter Bradshaw of "The Guardian" wrote: "Spielberg quite rightly doesn't try hiding any of those stage origins. His mastery of technique is thrilling; I gave my heart to this poignant American fairytale of doomed love". Helen O'Hara of "Empire" gave the film five stars and wrote: "Heartfelt and heart-breaking, this feels like Spielberg has made an adaptation faithful to its roots but also, always, alive to the modern world".


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Jason Bailey of "The Playlist" wrote, ""West Side Story" moves like a freight train, its 156 minutes passing in barely a breath, and that breakneck pace, combined with the expressionist aesthetic and candy-colored imagery, reminds us that blockbusters don't have to be greyscaled dreck". Richard Lawson of "Vanity Fair" wrote that "Spielberg and Kushner have done justice to what Bernstein, Robbins, and the quite recently late Stephen Sondheim made all those years ago – not subverting its enduring value, but rather, with fire and grace, doing so much to earn it". Owen Gleiberman of "Variety" opined that the film "has a brash effervescence. You can feel the joy he got out of making it, and the kick is infectious". However, Richard Brody of "The New Yorker" panned the film, saying that the film's creators "made ill-conceived additions and misguided revisions".


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: It was named one of the top ten films of 2021 by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute. Metacritic reported that the film appeared on 66 film critics' top ten lists for 2021 in being among the top ten films with the most appearances as it ranked first on 10 lists and second on 7 lists.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Some Latinos have been critical of the remake. Arlene Dávila wrote in an op-ed in "El Nuevo Día": "It's sad to realize once again the reality that Puerto Ricans and Latinos will be reduced to made-up themes and ideas taken from the playbook of what 'Puerto Rican' and 'Latino' are to the white imagination because what's certain is that nowadays Hollywood is whiter and more exclusionary than ever". Mandy Velez criticized the casting: "Once again, the actress playing the character of Maria is not Puerto Rican".


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Aurora Flores questioned the use of accents in the film and wrote: "In the end, you need more than just an advisory board. You need writers, directors, and producers. We need our stories told, our way". Arlene Dávila echoed this sentiment: "It's high time to say enough with the half-baked remakes, imports, and adaptations, and to start demanding productions and original content that is written and produced by our diverse community".


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: Josie Meléndez Hernández praised the film's portrayal of Puerto Ricans: "Many have been nervous about this new iteration of the musical. The original gave way to a stereotypical view of Puerto Ricans and our culture, which has affected how we are portrayed in the media since then. This time around, with Spielberg at the helm, it is safe to say that many of the harmful pieces of the first adaptation were patched up." Hernández also noted that the film had "a better depiction of Puerto Ricans" while suggesting it "is not a musical for Latines ".


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: "West Side Story" was nominated for several awards and won accolades from various organizations, critics' groups and circles, particularly in recognition of the cast's performances, Spielberg's direction, Kushner's screenplay, and the film's production merits. At the 94th Academy Awards, the film received seven nominations, including Best Picture. It became the second adaptation of the same source material for a previous Best Picture winner to be nominated for the same award after 1962's "Mutiny on the Bounty". With his Best Picture nod, Spielberg became the most nominated individual in the category with eleven films. Spielberg's Best Director nomination also made him the first filmmaker to be nominated in that category in six consecutive decades. Paul Tazewell became the first African American male costume designer to be nominated for Best Costume Design for his work on the film.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: At the 79th Golden Globe Awards, it received four nominations and three wins, including Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. Zegler made history as the first actress of Colombian descent/Latina to win Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical for her performance as Maria as well as becoming the youngest winner in that category at 20 years old. It also tied with "Belfast" for a leading eleven nominations at the 27th Critics' Choice Awards, including Best Picture, and won two awards, including Best Editing. In addition, it received five nominations at the 75th British Academy Film Awards, including Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Faist, and won two awards, including Best Casting.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: DeBose became the first Afro-Latina and openly queer woman of color to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role for her performance as Anita. With Moreno also having won the same aforementioned award, DeBose's win matched a record for the most acting Oscar wins for the same character after Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro's portrayals of Vito Corleone and Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix's portrayals of the Joker with it also being the first time it went to a pair of actresses who played the same part and in the same category. DeBose also won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture, the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, and the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Supporting Actress.


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: The film's screenplay hews more closely to the Broadway script of "West Side Story" than to the 1961 film adaptation written by Ernest Lehman. Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 film, plays Valentina, a reconceived and expanded version of the original character Doc, who serves as a mentor to the younger characters. An added African American character, Abe, makes the cast "more representative of ... 1950s New York". Siblings Maria and Bernardo are given a surname: Vasquez. Anybodys, who is portrayed as a tomboy desperate to become a Jet in the stage show and 1961 film, is portrayed as transgender in this version. Peck's choreography is original and does not attempt to replicate Jerome Robbins' choreography. Some scenes are played out in Spanish or a mix of Spanish and English with no subtitles providing translation. Spielberg further explained that the decision to not subtitle the Spanish dialogue was done "out of respect for the inclusivity of our intentions to hire a totally Latinx cast to play the Sharks' boys and girls. ... If I subtitled the Spanish I’d simply be doubling down on the English and giving English the power over the Spanish. This was not going to happen in this film, I needed to respect the language enough not to subtitle it".


title: West Side Story (2021 film)

text: The film follows the song order of the Broadway script, except that both "Gee, Officer Krupke" and "Cool" are performed in the first half, with "One Hand, One Heart" appearing in between. Tony sings "Cool" to Riff to convince the Jets not to fight at the rumble that evening, while playing keep away with the gun bought by Riff, instead of Riff singing it to encourage the Jets to stay cool during the war council at Doc's Drug Store.