Spider-Man: The Musical, music by U2

Hard to believe they've been working on this shit for nearly a decade.

Spider Man: Polish The Turd

nearly a decade to come up with this:

http://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/media/library/images/spider-man-turn-off-the-dark-costumes-5.jpg

oh my God, I didn't realize he was supposed to be catching Mary Jane

this is horrible but I am super glad dude is okay because it makes me feel like less of an ass for laughing at the absurdity of this

holy shit I just watched the video, that makes this decidedly less funny

You know, the Cirque de Soleil comment above made me realize that if the rightsholders had just approached *them* to do a production based on all this and they just had it run in Vegas, there might have been some eyerolling but the damn thing would have made a mint and be chugging along without a worry.

Instead there's Bono blathering, Julie Taymor biting off more than she can chew and near-death.

The Gawker piece calling for them to close down for good and cut their losses basically says that even if all the technical elements we were pulled off perfectly, the terrible book and songs and basics would make it one of the most boring, bad Broadway productions in history.

This would have made a great Vegas Cirque de Soleil stunt thing, no doubt, U2 songs and all.

the terrible book and songs and basics would make it one of the most boring, bad Broadway productions in history.

If the 60 minutes piece on the play was anything to go by, the songs were really weak even by current U2 standards.

oh my God, I didn't realize he was supposed to be catching Mary Jane

he wasn't supposed to catch her - he was supposed to rush to the edge and appear to jump as the lights went back, with the cord keeping him from actually going over. And it didn't.

lights went off, sorry

insane that they've got these massive, movement and sight-blocking harnesses everywhere and they don't actually WORK

Maybe they're trolling everybody and this is actually Phantom of the Opera 2.0

http://broadwayworld.com/article/Morning_Update_Video_of_SPIDERMAN_Injury_Actor_Identified_20101221

We're told via a stagehand that this was NOT a flying sequence and that Spider-Man was NOT supposed to drop at all. He was supposed to run to top of the ramp as if to jump with the lights then set to go to black. The cable that snapped is what stops him from going over the edge, and that is what failed. He then fell approximately 30 feet.

Can't believe the rep actually said "several" feet

this is giving me emotional whiplash

like I keep going back and forth between "this is horrible" and "AHAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

A hyper-realist post-modern reenacting of the phantom of the opera would be genius come to think of it.

They're inviting everyone into the play, even those who haven't seen it. The play is half Broadway, half street performance with the media not knowing of their participation. In a few weeks hired audience members will suffer from an accident and eventually they'll reveal the green goblin has been living inside the theater all this time and he has been tampering with the production.

one thing that wasn't pointed out is that the only reason we have video of this is because some dickhead was taping a Broadway musical on his iPhone

Was he gonna post it to Midtown Vegan?

one thing that wasn't pointed out is that the only reason we have video of this is because some dickhead was taping a Broadway musical on his iPhone

possibly because whogivesashit.jpg

one thing that wasn't pointed out is that the only reason we have video of this is because some dickhead was taping a Broadway musical on his iPhone

― mmmm... yung hummus (Whiney G. Weingarten)

but, the point here is: was it really an accident? How do we know that's not Taymor's iphone.

O_O

i mean, that actor was so happy to be working with U2, but wasn't happy to finally meet... THE EDGE

lol

If your theatrical production is better known for cast injuries and technical delays than good songs or good performances, expect gawkers

Poor spiderman. 30 feet is ow

On a side-note - excellent review by the 6 year old. I loved the part about repetitive song lyrics: "I said it six times so you would be prepared to be annoyed."

Anyways, wow, that kid is tooo smart. I blame the parents

ummm 26 feet.

hey, its closer to 30 than "several"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBFvu4FiYds

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_l7me8uVqDa1qbche3o1_500.jpg

lol

Can't believe the rep actually said "several" feet

Exactly. Is this an 80-year-old veteran Broadway press guy who doesn't know you can't say these things in 2010?

ned otm re cirque

have we considered that the rep said "several" because he didn't know how many feet exactly?

If a rep knows so little about the situation that he bought that THAT was "several", then imho he shouldn't be repping anything to the general public.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdRS_LDu7AY

they need to shut this shit down. There's a score of people on BroadwayWorld.com who are pointing out that 'lots of shows experience many injuries', but what they fail to realize is that most of those are minor injuries due to physical accidents, whereas the four major injuries regarding Spiderman have mostly been due to equipment failure or failure to maintain safety regulations. The Department of Labor is making its SECOND visit after all.

fuck this show!

I do feel for the actors though. they all deserve Purple Hearts.

would actors equity shut it down? or the city?

well, they'll probably work in tandem to make that happen. I mean after this little delay, assuming that they do prove in good faith to both parties that they have addressed all safety concerns, they're going to be on such a short leash with the Department of Labor from tehn on...the show is so infamous now it's going to be impossible for anything to go unnoticed.

I wouldn't be surprised if a demand is made to scale back certain stunts, which would mean *gasp* another delay (which would be funny considering that they only just pushed opening back another month like a week ago).

only spiderman can shut this show down

@Robalope SPIDER-MAN: TURNED OFF BY OSHA

maybe if they jettison the Bono/Edge score and get Randy Newman to do a brand new one, and then have all the fight sequences performed offstage while clangy sound effects play, this show will have a shot.

from september: taymor's quote is chilling in light of recent events.

Bono agrees that "what's special is the very ordinariness of Peter Parker. It sounds odd to say, but Spider-Man is as important to the 21st century as the story of Ulysses was to the ancient Greeks. These are morality plays, where luminous characters duke it out in ways very revealing of the nature of who we are."

In Spider-Man, that battle is enhanced with spectacle. "We've got a great dance company, and there will be acrobatic circus feats and unbelievable action sequences," Taymor says. "We'll have (performers) flying over people in the audience, landing in the aisles and the balconies."

http://movieclips.com/DbPN-three-amigos-gringos-falling-from-the-sky/

did the audience present the night of the most recent accident get their money back, i wonder?

probably not, because even though they didn't make it to the end, I'm sure Julie Taymor will argue that the first three preview shows didn't even have an ending.....

A friend of mine was in that audience (and tweeted about it like a fiend for 24 hours) and no, I don't believe they got their money back.

No one's been getting their money back, because these shows have all be retroactively declared previews. Which is just one more facet of the royal scam.

Taymor tries to reassure cast everything is cool, cast not so sure, tonight's performance is off

yea I know it's previews -- I'm not so sure all the paying audience does though, which is part of the problem.

i think there's too much money involved/to be made for this to jump the tracks now

with the nut being one million a week, I'm not so sure there is a lot of money to be made. The show has extremely negative word of mouth, and while in general "there is no such thing as bad publicity", there are limits to that.

They'd have to be at near capacity almost nightly, and not many shows that aren't Lion King and/or Wicked are capable of that.

I'm sure they're not going to quit right now at this moment, but the idea of opening day happening seems less likely to me. If the cast is really as unhappy as they sounded in the report, I don't doubt we'll start to see attrition and people fleeing to other projects.