Jan 052012
 

spider man poster Spider Man the Musicals firm grip sets Broadway record, writ­ten by U2’s and The Edge, has taken the highest single-week tak­ings of any show in history.

The , which was plagued with prob­lems from its incep­tion, took $2.9m (£1.8m) over nine per­form­ances last week, accord­ing to The Broad­way League. The Edge said it was a “proud day” for every­one who has been involved.

The show, which cost $75m (£48m) to make, is the most expens­ive Broad­way show to be produced.

Bono said,

Things did get chaotic and messy after our pro­du­cer Tony Adams died. But this week’s news has us all giddy again and we are rais­ing our glasses to Tony, to our indefatig­able cast, crew, cre­at­ive — and pro­duc­tion team.”

Co-producer Jeremiah Har­ris admit­ted he and his col­league, fel­low pro­du­cer Michael Cohl, “came into a very dif­fi­cult situ­ation” when they signed up.

We’ve changed the team. We added play­ers when we needed to. We’ve moved some play­ers around to dif­fer­ent pos­i­tions. And the suc­cess we’ve had here is the cul­min­a­tion of all those people work­ing hard to get done what we’ve got­ten done.”

Half of all attendees to Spider-Man had never been to a Broad­way show before, and the pro­duc­tion has been seen by more than 600,000 people dur­ing the past year.

The musical has beaten the pre­vi­ous record set by Wicked in 2011, which took $2.2m (£1.4m) over an eight-show run in Janu­ary last year.

via BBC News

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  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Spider Man the Musicals firm grip sets Broadway record
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Spider Man the Musicals firm grip sets Broadway record
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Spider Man the Musicals firm grip sets Broadway record
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Spider Man the Musicals firm grip sets Broadway record
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Spider Man the Musicals firm grip sets Broadway record
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Spider Man the Musicals firm grip sets Broadway record
  • wp socializer sprite mask 16px Spider Man the Musicals firm grip sets Broadway record
Apr 062011
 

Taymor Julie Why is Julie Taymor being attacked so viciously and relentlessly? Harry Len­nix, an actor who has fre­quently worked with Tay­mor for almost 20 years, tries to answer the ques­tion in The :

In my opin­ion, the pro­du­cers of Spider-Man have found a con­veni­ent whip­ping girl to bear the brunt of any woes related to the pro­duc­tion. They seem to have absolved them­selves from account­ab­il­ity for the show’s pro­duc­tion while reap­ing the bene­fit of the pub­li­city sur­round­ing the absurd decision to jet­tison the cre­at­ive vis­ion­ary behind it. In their minds, the fault couldn’t pos­sibly lie with an untested pro­du­cer, or the two all but absent rock star com­posers whose notori­ety is derived from a com­pletely dif­fer­ent medium. Rather, they are eager to blame the female dir­ector whose last endeavor res­ul­ted in noth­ing short of a trans­form­a­tional exper­i­ence for audi­ences around the globe.… [con­tinue reading]

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Mar 222011
 

Pro­du­cers of ’s much– delayed $70 mil­lion “” are in talks to replace its high-profile cho­reo­grapher, Daniel Ezra­low. He is likely to be replaced by Chase Brock, a Brook­lyn dance maker in his late twenties.

In Feb­ru­ary, Brock cho­reo­graphed the Encores! revival of “Lost in the Stars” at New York City Cen­ter. His last Broad­way credit was as assist­ant to cho­reo­grapher Kath­leen Mar­shall in the 2003 revival of “Won­der­ful Town.”

Ezra­low, 54, cre­ated the mid-air battles that have been the troubled ’s most uni­formly praised ele­ment. He had worked with , the dir­ector and co-author of “Spider-Man” on her 2007 Beatles-inspired film “Across the Uni­verse.” He worked with Tay­mor in 2000 on “The Green Bird” on Broad­way.… [con­tinue reading]

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Mar 122011
 

There are dis­agree­ments over the terms of her depar­ture from the helm of the $70 mil­lion , des­pite the pro­du­cers’ announce­ment that she had been replaced as the show’s driv­ing force.

Tay­mor and the show’s pro­du­cers have been unable to strike a deal because of dis­agree­ments on sev­eral key ele­ments of her pending depar­ture, includ­ing roy­al­ties, a non-disclosure agree­ment and copy­right own­er­ship, accord­ing to a per­son famil­iar with the matter.

A stale­mate could lead to a law­suit, as the pro­du­cers have already hired a cre­at­ive team to replace Tay­mor, a Tony Award win­ner who has over­seen the show for the last nine years.

Although not­ing that Tay­mor retained the title of dir­ector, pro­du­cers Michael Cohl and Jeremiah Har­ris said Wed­nes­day night that they hired “The Boy From Oz” dir­ector Philip Wil­liam McKin­ley to over­see sta­ging and “Spider-Man” comic writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa to rework the book for a planned over­haul of the pro­duc­tion.… [con­tinue reading]

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Feb 132011
 

Just when things couldn’t get any tougher for “” on a week­end when that was slapped with two safety viol­a­tions by the New York State Depart­ment of Labor, ’s favor­ite $65 mil­lion punch line was once again skewered by “Sat­urday Night Live.”

[clip only view­able in the United States]

Last night’s “S.N.L.” broad­cast included the fake com­mer­cial for a law firm that spe­cial­izes in win­ning set­tle­ments for audi­ence mem­bers who have been injured by the show (includ­ing a cer­tain Irish rock star who’s sus­tained irre­par­able dam­age to his repu­ta­tion). That firm’s name? Gub­lin and Green, of course.

via On ‘S.N.L.’, a Law Firm With a ‘Spider-Man’ Spe­cialty — NYTimes.com[con­tinue reading]

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Feb 072011
 

Spider Man Turn Off the Dark 500x352 Shows were only allowed two public performances before opening night and, even then, the profits had to be given to charityTaymor’s will get its open­ing night on 15 March after more than three months of pre­view per­form­ances. The remem­bers how things used to be:

The swell of inter­net reviews and unpal­at­able prices mean pre­views no longer bene­fit pro­du­cers or cus­tom­ers. So what’s the point?

Pre­views – pub­lic per­form­ances before crit­ics are allowed in to review – are meant as a kind of insur­ance policy for pro­du­cers. The idea is that they offer a sys­tem whereby shows can “work them­selves out” in front of an audi­ence before any kind of final crit­ical judg­ment is passed, and that tick­ets will be cheaper as a result.

Over the last half cen­tury, they have become the norm in theatre.… [con­tinue reading]

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Jan 062011
 

U2’s Bono and The Edge are com­ing to the aid of their problem-plagued .

The musi­cians, who wrote the score, will be vis­it­ing this month to “to do what they need to do”, said show spokes­man Rick Mira­mon­tez. Up until now neither of them have been avail­able to attend any per­form­ances because of tour­ing com­mit­ments in New Zea­l­and and Australia.

300px Bono at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival1 Bono and The Edge to help Spider Man musical
Image via Wiki­pe­dia

Their musical — the biggest in Broad­way his­tory — begins the New Year facing numer­ous chal­lenges. Four act­ors from the pro­duc­tion have been injured dur­ing pre­views, one of them ser­i­ously. There have been forced can­cel­la­tions, fre­quent tech­nical glitches and neg­at­ive early assess­ments from critics.

Some pun­dits ques­tion whether the troubled show can ever become a long-term suc­cess. … [con­tinue reading]

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