Swinging Back Into Action?

Spider-Man had two great things happen to him in the same day this past Thursday. First, a copy of “Amazing Fantasy” #15 sold for $1.1 million - damn-near unheard of for a comic book as young as 1962 and a testament in and of itself to how popular the character is.

The second great event that day must have seemed like a cosmic reward. Julie Taymor, director of the bane of my existence the Spider-Man musical, Turn off the Dark, has done herself, Broadway, comic fans everywhere, and the rest of the world a huge favor by stepping down as the director of the show and helped everyone realize where the problem with this musical was.

The producers were all, “she’ll still be around because it was her creative vision that helped shape this thing” - and then promptly got to work cleaning up behind her, making changes such as:

Reinforcing the love story between Peter Parker and Mary-Jane - a no-brainer

Ditching a musical number called “Deeply Furious”, which reportedly sucked out loud

Reworking the involvement of the Green Goblin - who was slated to die in Act I and inexplicably show up again in Act II - and making the way for him to be the main villain (again, duh), because

Arachne, the eight-legged villainess Taymor created for this mess, will be pretty much written out of the story.

After nine years (wow, has it been THAT long??) of work on this thing, it might - might - finally be headed in the right direction. I’m still not convinced this show is a good idea in the first place, but at least now the curse of the egotistical director who refused to let anything get in the way of her vision - even common sense and any respect for what makes this character special in the first place - has been lifted.

The official story is that she stepped aside of her own free will. Behind the scenes, however, word is she refused to listen to anyone about making changes to the show after the recent critical drubbing it took. Not accepting input from the cast (who even seemed to know more than her in this instance) is one thing, but refusing to make changes even after her bosses - the producers of the show - told her to? Even after Bono and The Edge told her to? Honey, that’s just suicidal. After the money they’ve put in to this thing and with their reputations on the line, you’d best believe Bono and The Edge would have a little say. And probably more than a little stroke, since they’re, you know...half of U2 and all.

Taymor may have made The Lion King a huge success, but her resulting ego and artsier-than-thou aesthetic (she made the movies Across the Universe, Frida, and Titus, among others) were less-than-conducive to a mainstream big-budget spectacle involving super heroes - something she obviously knows nothing about. Hopefully, she learned lessons in both artistic and egotistical restraint.

Hopefully, Broadway producers everywhere learned a lesson, as well: never trust a woman named “Julie”.

My Issue With Spider-Man

No, it has nothing to do with the character, the comic, any of the stories, or even the movies. (Although that third one has taken less than its fair share of criticism...Venom as a 70s emo wuss? Who booked this crap?)

No, my issue is with Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark. The musical. Just one question...a request, really...

Can we pull the plug on this thing’s life support already and just let it die? Honestly, this thing has “destined to fail” written all over it. And yet, the producers march on like General Custer.

Alan Cumming (known for several cool roles, but the one closest to this would be Nightcrawler in the second X-Men movie) was set to be a part of this thing before he grew a brain. No, that’s not a knock - hell, even he feels that way about it (edited for language):

He explained, "My GOD, that was a lucky escape...Talk about dodging a bullet there! …it just %#@!ed me about. It kept getting delayed and delayed, and so I was like, 'OK, time to move on.' Yeah, it was a bit awkward. She [Director Julie Taymor] wasn't best pleased when I quit. But the thing about Julie is that she's very blinkered about her work, and then things go into the ether. So the next time I saw her for The Tempest, it was like it never happened."

Need to know more? Okay, sure!

Four actors have been injured during production, including lead actress Natalie Mendoza. The original actors for two main roles - Mary Jane and the Green Goblin - have split. It’s been delayed several dozen times - at first for funding issues before racking up a $60 million production price tag. They’ve had to bring in another director and damn good comic scribe Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa to save their collective fat. And THAT was because the first preview featured several technical glitches, more delays, and generally sucked so bad that a few critics broke an unspoken rule just to let the world know how abominable this show is.

On top of all that, do you remember the last time someone got the bright idea to put a super-hero musical on Broadway? Yeah, neither does anyone else - because it sucked so bad the first seven rows passed out from lack of oxygen (thank you, Jim Cornette)! It’s A Bird... It’s A Plane...It’s Superman! is now 45 years old and it lasted less than four months before closing doors. That should tell you how terrific it was. And yet, someone’s willing to try this again.

Of course, comic movies are all the rage now. The nerds are coming out of the closet and geek chic is all the rage. There’s a great market out there to be had, but it’s still no reason for this. $60 million dollars later, this thing has almost no chance of making its money back, much less turning a profit.

Even after all the evidence above, there are three simple reasons why this show is a reason that Roe Vs. Wade was passed in to legislation (I know it’s not the first time I’ve used that line, but this actually fits better.).

It’s a musical. About Spider-Man. With music by Bono and The Edge.