The New York Post has an update on the Spider-Man musical (I keep thinking this is something I had a dream about, rather than something that’s actually being made) and its amazing budget:
Some of the people involved (there are dozens and dozens, with more being added daily) are starting to blanch at the price tag. With straight faces, a few are running around town saying things like: “Well, it’s $40 million now, but we think we can get it down to $35 million.”
The paper is concerned that at this rate, there’s no way the show can turn a profit:
If - and it’s a big “if” where Julie The Lion Taymor is concerned - they do bring it in for $35 million, “Spider-Man,” with a weekly running cost of $1 million, will have to run about 8,000 years in a Broadway theater just to break even.
“It’s off the charts,” one source says. “Off the charts.”
The musical has a rock score by Bono (quite a good score, I’m told; the messy book is another matter) and is being produced by Sony, Marvel Comics and David Garfinkle, a lawyer who managed to get control of the musical after its original producer, the much-missed Tony Adams, died of a heart attack three years ago.
The show is supposed to open sometime next year.
October 10th, 2008 at 9:33 am
This just sounds like the “Heaven’s Gate” of Broadway. Or “Ishtar,” for those of you who don’t remember Heaven’s Gate.
Man, I’m getting old.