Bono Needs to Get Away From Broadway

The Spider-Man musical has been in the works for a good long while. Originally, it might have been at least mediocre:  direction by Julie Taymor, music by Bono and The Edge from U2, and Alan Cumming and Evan Rachel Wood as the Green Goblin and Mary Jane.  But Cumming and Wood have dropped out in the past couple of months and apparently Julie Taymor doesn’t have any sense, so now it’s just going to be a disaster.

An absurd amount of money is going into this travesty of a musical. The New York Post said:

“The show’s weekly running cost is $850,000. And that’s before royalty payments. Factor those in, and the weekly nut jumps to more than $1 million. A person who’s crunched the numbers says “Spider-Man” will have to run five years — at full capacity, and by selling lots of premium-priced seats — just to earn back the $50 million production cost.”

Because the producers know they’re not going to be able to sell every ticket for every show for five years, they’re planning on paying off the production cost by going on tour.  But it’s not going to be like a regular Broadway tour in theatres or anything like that; they’re planning on booking sports arenas with thousands of seats.  One of the producers said:

“They’re trying to sell it as a rock concert. But you’re not going to sell out a 10,000-seat basketball stadium unless Bono and The Edge are playing the songs. Basically, it’s gotta be a U2 concert. Nobody’s going to sit in nosebleed seats to see a Broadway musical.”

This whole thing is just a mess.  Who wants to listen to U2 songs about Spider-Man in the first place?  I’m sure there’s an audience for this type of thing, but I don’t know that audience and I’m not sure I want to.  Regardless, previews start in October, and I can’t wait to watch this whole thing crash and burn.