All kidding aside, Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark has been in the news a lot this week.
This past Sunday night the first public preview of the show ended up a bit rocky, to say the least. The show was stopped five times due to technical problems, the most talked about of which lead to Reeve Carney, the actor who plays Spider-Man, being left dangling above the audience for an unspecified amount of time.
The $65 million show's disastrous preview has been the talk of New York media, and has even made it's way into the national discussion, featured below in a segment on NBC Nightly News from last night:
Of course, the old adage that there's no such thing as bad publicity seems to have held true as immediately after word leaked about the problems int he preview, Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark immediately sold over $1 million dollars in tickets. (Granted, that's just enough to cover one week of production for the show…) Is this people hoping to see something disastrous happen first hand? Or is it people intrigued by the ambitious spectacle of what director Julie Taymor is trying to achieve on-stage. It's probably a mix of both.
Me? I was interested in seeing the show before all of this news broke, but now I am determined to go. My interest has been piqued just from the brief glimpses we've had of some of the hgh wire work. If Taymor can pull this off, it looks like it will be quite the thrilling spectacle.
Here a behind the scenes video that the production team has released:
If they can work out all the kinks in Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, I'll be there as soon as I can! I'll be the one hoping that Spider-Man doesn't land on my head because, frankly, I don't need to die a funny death.
Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark is, as of now, set to open on January 11, 2011.
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I’m planning a trip to NYC in February. I’ll check it out for myself either way. I’m not a Broadway musical fan, but I am a comics and music fan. Looking forward to it.
Despite it’s dumb name, the preview for the show does look pretty spectacular with all the wire work. I hope they can work out the kinks and it’s big.
I wish Taymor, Bono, Edge, et al the best, but this show is starting out three touchdowns behind. With a weekly one million dollar operating budget, and assuming a semi-standard nine shows a week, they would have to sell out EVERY show each week starting at $60 a seat. If they ran the show twice a day EVERY day of the week, they would need to pack the house every single performance at $40 a seat. That seems improbable. There is certainly a curiosity factor associated with the sets, the high-wire flying component, and the fact that the music was written by two rock legends–but if I find myself in New York City anytime soon, I’ll be going to see something else.
I saw a Spider-Man musical in a Six Flags park. They didn’t have the million dollar wiring for realistic flight, etc. But they still swung and fought on buildings, even the Goblin flew on a glider. I must have it recorded somewhere. It was excellent. If they got rid of the wiring, according to what they say it would cut the costs by half.
Either way, don’t care how much it cost. As long as it’s great. I’ll have to plan a trip to NY.
And death by falling Spider-Man actor? Well, if that’s how you died, and you’re a comic blogger?! Wow. That would be awful.
“Man struck dead in Spider-Man Musical was a comic book blogger, apparently nerding out when he was killed in a freak accident.” ;(
Reading descriptions of this preview reminded me of my favorite story from This American Life: Jack Hitt’s telling of the worst production of PETER PAN that he ever saw. It’s a hilarious listen. It’s the first ‘act’ of TAL’s Fiasco! episode.
One commenter in a the Times article noted that he felt the story was too complicated, that he couldn’t follow it. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/theater/29spiderman.html?pagewanted=all
I don’t know how it is possible to screw up this story, but if the story is so convoluted that the audience can’t follow it, then this musical’s days are numbered, IMO.
Man it doesn’t smell good, I think it’ll bomb. Although I may end up going to see, if only for the train wreck value.
Sometimes I suspect that the comic book community wants this production to fail But from the sounds of it the audience at the preview had a blast.
@Muady We must not have read the same reports. Here’s the New York Times account of the first preview performance. On the basis of the audience being described as “warmly charitable” after the show, it hardly seems to me like they had a “blast”: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/theater/29spiderman.html?pagewanted=all
(1) “The intermission began at 8:19 p.m.; it was still under way 34 minutes later when some in the audience began to clap in unison, as they passed their two-hour mark inside the theater. Mr. White, the production stage manager, then said over the microphone, “I know, guys, I know, I beg your patience,” and the clapping stopped.”
(2) “After the show, several audience members said in interviews that they would hold off on recommending the show to friends until improvements were made. Sherry Lawrence, a writer for a U2 fan Web site, said that even though she liked some of the songs, she planned to tell readers to wait for the creators to do more work during previews.”
As someone who rarely gets east of Chicago, all I think when I read about this is, “What on earth will the touring company be like?” There’ll be one guy on a bungie cord beatboxing.
It looks cool to me. I’d go watch it.
Turn off the Dark? Seriously?
You’d think with 65 million dollars they wouldn’t have had to get their Spider-Man costume from K-Mart.
@cahubble: I bet tickets are closer to the $250-a-seat variety.
@cahubble09 @WilliamKScurryJr Yeah, the website lists the price ranges from $75-$145 for a ticket. And I bet there are more expensive seats than that.
If you want to throw away that much money on a gaudy trainwreck….then ok!
That’s how much broadway shows generally cost. like between $50-150.
Anyone who watched the “60 Minutes” piece on this show can’t be unimpressed by what is being attempted here. I do worry that the book will be a lot like the disastrous James Cameron Spidey screenplay; to me, Spidey = funny, and I don’t think that’s going to get translated here (nor did it in the movies, though). Still, some of the wire work looks SPECTACULAR (pun only kinda intended), and there are BOUND to be technical snafus along the way, considering they’re taking the Over-The-Field camera from the NFL and attaching actors to it (literally, that’s what they’re doing).
I guarantee this, though: if you do get to see this, you will not leave unimpressed on some level.
Oh, and here’s some counterbalance to that scathing NY Post piece a few days ago:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roger-friedman/spider-man-on-broadway-se_b_790048.html
I have my doubts, but those doubts do not involve the costumes, scenic design, or stunt work. They DO involve the book, and to a lesser extent the music (I do like what I’ve heard as stand-alone songs, but I don’t know if they together form a coherent musical score). And when you get right down to it, those two things are the whole deal.
Oh and, as usual: @Jimski for the win!
@cahubble09 I’d heard this complaint, too. I don’t know how in the world you can write a complicated Spider-Man story. I mean, there are over 1,000 comics with Spider-Man as a main solo or co-character, all of which can be boiled down to a few stock plots. Not to mention there’s a building across town wiith people who might know a thing or two about Spider-Man stories…
My other reaction to hearing this: “the story is too complicated … oh my god they’ve turned the Clone Saga into a musical!”
Not terribly interested in this,but the tech stuff is looking pretty cool (I’m a theater techie, so I geek out about stuff like that).
Also, did anyone see the flip that dude did at about :26 into the second video? So cool!
The funniest story to come out of this whole fiasco is that:
The owner who runs the building playing the musical is offering other shows to come play there as well. He says it has nothing to do with the huge budget and more then likely chance that it’s going to bomb whether it’s good or not. Yet he wants to fill the spot ‘just in case’.
Even the man offering room for this train wreck wants to get out before it gets any worse.
Not very surprising. This is the whole reason that it took over a decade to get a Spider-Man movie made (and that Jim Cameron turned down a chance to make it in the early 90s): the technology doesn’t exist to do these stunts with people. Not without risking serious injury.
Its still a work in progress. They can work out the kinks and get it on track. If I make it to NYC I would go see it.
Here’s why I’m rooting for them, and why I’m excited: they’re daring to do something outrageous, outlandish, that shouldn’t work creatively or physically… but if they pull it off… oh boy, it will be good.
Go big or go home.
Off of what @ccarney said… this scathing NY Post review (which if you live in NY, you know that’s not actually journalism in that paper) was of the first preview performance. Now, I know that they’ve had a treacherous journey just to get to previews… but Broadway manners insist you don’t review a show until opening night. This guy who went ahead and wrote a review of a preview broke a lot of unwritten rules, and IMO seems to have an axe to grind. The last quote (the last quote, of course, because we all love disasters) of that NBC report was how the show still has 41 previews to go before opening. 41. That’s a lot of time to fix the bugs. Will they? No. But judging a Broadway show based on its first preview is like judging a movie based on its first test screening. It’s premature, and bad form to write a review of either.
And if you’ve watched all the production video that’s been made public and you AREN’T excited by the design and the costumes and the potential of the acrobatics… well, I don’t know what to tell you, then. But the design all looks ridiculously good… no surprise, really; it’s Julie Taymor.
AND! (My last point. For now. Heh.) The described “disastrous” preview? Not really so disastrous by the standard of tech-heavy shows, and anybody going to that first preview should have known exactly what they were in for. I would have been stunned if they had run the whole show WITHOUT stopping several times, frankly.
That NY Post guy does have an axe to grind, if you want a really good in-depth piece check out the cover story from NY Mag from a few weeks ago.
Check it out yo:
http://nymag.com/arts/theater/features/69680/
@ResurrectionFlan Nice find. Did you take a look at the comments? Look at this gem.
“Spider-Man ‘is’ cursed.
Joe Quesada and Marvel editors cursed the character.
Make a deal with the devil, you get burned.
Everything associated with Spider-Man is going to fail until someone retcons Joe Quesada and his pissing all over the character out of existence. It’s sad because Joe Quesada just stained the character ugly.
The people who worked on this show and continue to work deserve better but then, maybe they should have considered doing a musical about a real hero like Superman, Captain America, Batman or even Iron Man… not a loser who makes a deal with the devil.
Looks like the devil has his hands all over this production.”
hahaha
This was just a preview performance. A beta test really. It’s just the media wants this to fail, so they are hyping this up as the failure they desperately want it to be.
It’s ok to be a freak-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTRwNdG9UEY
@WilliamScurry @cskilpatrick: Interesting … still very curious to see how this turns out.
I have to be honest. My beef has partly to do with the problems inherent in translating this story from comic book to Broadway musical. The final product might be a fantastic piece of work. Conceptually, there is a lot to grab onto here: Taymor’s set and costume design background (Lion King), Bono and Edge’s musical talent, up-and-comer Reeve Carney’s potential, etc. etc. The fact that it is being billed as a rock opera leads me to be at least marginally interested.
But when everything is said and done, provided the show manages to run for even a year, will it still be ^Spider-Man^? I suppose one could argue that the show’s success might be indicative of the degree to which Spider-Man has become entrenched in and an integral part of the American mythos, as it were. But I still feel like there is something slightly sacrilegious about the reconstruction of the character and its context necessitated by adapting it to a medium so foreign to its cultural origin. JMO
@cahubble09
Yea, and it also reports that:
“Most of the night’s major flying sequences — which make up a relative fraction of the show — went off without a hitch, with children and some adults squealing in delight.”
and that the one bitchy catcall as booed down by the rest of the audience.
The “negative” reports you read are simply sensationalizing the unreadyness of the show. A fact that preview audiences were advised about before the show.
@Muady
Well, we all know what a sensationalist newspaper the New York Times is (note sarcasm). I wasn’t denying or dismissing that some fun was had, but was simply pointing out that claiming the audience had a “blast” at this performance is an overstatement not supported by what was actually reported.
@Muady P.S. for the sake of amity, here’s a less scathing review that I found on Huffington Post …
oops … dammit …
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/roger-friedman/spider-man-on-broadway-se_b_790048.html
I would want to see a super athletic Spider-Man live show, but when you add in Carnage and music by Bono, I immediately run away.
@cahubble09
So, what did the show do to you that you’re so determined to paint it five colors of failure and see it crash and burn? You’re sarcasm and high regard for the ny times is noted, but I wasnt talking about the times. In fact, their article about the show was particularly unjudgemental.
I stand by what I said, every report i find about the audience’s attitude indicates that they were rather pleased and had fun with the show when it was working.
@Muady: I’m not, as you say, “determined to paint it five colors of failure and see it crash and burn” …
I don’t think a one million dollar weekly budget is viable, but the tickets are apparently priced so as to make that plausible. I’m skeptical that they’ll be able to work out the technical kinks and since they’ve already had one performer injury I’m concerned the run won’t happen without a serious accident, but only time will tell (we’re talking ~50+ mph utilizing a complex system of cables ABOVE a live audience). And although the transfer of content from one medium to another (comic books to Broadway) feels really jarring to me and makes me wonder whether the “Spider-Man” represented in the musical will bear any meaningful resemblance to the original “Spider-Man” of the comic books, I’m also intrigued by the production’s potential. As I reflected above, the success of the musical might suggest interesting implications for the degree to which Spider-Man has become embedded in our cultural mythos and psyche (in the same way that Superman and Batman have, for example).
I’m not going to restate fully here what I wrote above, but will merely suggest that you re-read what I actually wrote and ask yourself if you might, in your haste to defend the musical production, have perhaps misread it.
I still think this is a horrible idea and I’m unconvinced it was conceived by someone both sober and sane. I don’t think there’s a single reason to believe it won’t bomb.
That said, I wish this production the best and would be happy to be proven wrong.
http://buncheness.blogspot.com/2010/12/web-goo-over-broadway-spider-man-turn.html
Bunche completely and totally THRASHES “Turn Off The Dark”. Based on his description of the plot, I now am most definitely “determined to paint [this musical] five colors of failure and see it crash and burn”. Note there are SPOILERS in his review.
According to Bunche, the plot contains a horrifying REWRITE of the Spider-Man origin … yes … REWRITE; the music is boring to less than average; the comic book fan community is allegorically banished from the stage in Act Two (surprise, surprise) … I shall not go on.
I DEFINITELY don’t want to EVER see this and seriously hope it fails miserably.