Spider-Man is spinning his web toward Broadway
"Lion King's" Julie Taymor will direct the comic's adaptation, with U2's Bono and the Edge providing music and lyrics.
By Geoff Boucher, Times Staff Writer
April 20, 2007
Spider-Man may soon be spinning his webs in a Broadway musical that will be directed by Tony Award winner Julie Taymor, who famously transferred "The Lion King" to stage, and will feature new music and lyrics by Bono and the Edge of U2.
Readings will start this summer for the splashy project, executives at Marvel Comics said Thursday. There's no official word on a premiere date or any hints about early casting choices to play Peter Parker, Mary Jane Watson, Aunt May, J. Jonah Jameson or the other characters from the popular spandex soap opera.
It won't be the first time a superhero has made it to Broadway; "It's a Bird ... It's a Plane ... It's Superman" took flight in 1966 but, despite favorable reviews, didn't click with the public. But Spidey is the first Marvel Comics character to leap to the stage.
The spindly wall-crawler, created in 1962 by the team of artist Steve Ditko and writer Stan Lee, has already proved to be titan on the silver screen. The first two films in the popular Sony franchise have grossed $777 million in the U.S. alone while the third installment is poised to hit theaters on May 4, with the hero tussling this time with two shape-shifting foes (the gritty Sandman and the oily Venom), as well as the vengeful son of the late Green Goblin.
Spider-Man has some of the most visually interesting villains in all of comics, and it will be a challenge for Taymor to deliver a viable stage adaptation of the mechanical tentacles of Doctor Octopus or the flying bat-glider of the Green Goblin. But the director did win Tonys for direction and costume design for the wildly popular adaptation of "The Lion King," which used puppetry, stilts, mechanically enhanced costumes and other tactics to create its complex vision of the jungle fable.
Bono and the Edge, meanwhile, have done movie soundtrack work, but the rock heroes are newcomers to Broadway. This will be the second superhero résumé line for the Edge. The U2 guitarist also wrote and played the slinky theme song for "The Batman," the stylized Kids WB cartoon series that premiered in 2004.
The Spider-Man musical is being produced by Hello Entertainment/David Garfinkle, Martin McCallum, Marvel Entertainment and Sony Pictures Entertainment.
