Vogue interviewed director Julie Taymor (The Lion King) about Spider-man: Turn Off The Dark, all but guarantees that the musical will be a disaster of epic proportions.
Vogue recently published an article about Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, and what they reveal is more worrisome than enticing. The musical has been plagued with injuries, budget meltdowns, and repetitions of “why the hell are you making a musical about Spider-Man?” but the photos released to accompany Vogue‘s piece manage to trump all previous woes.
The photos, some of the first to feature the main actors in costume, were taken by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz. (Note that, as this is a Vogue photoshoot, Jennifer Damiano, who plays Mary Jane, is in couture, rather than in costume.) The costume and design details revealed in the photos lead me to believe that the show will be a bloated, overproduced mess. As the show currently has a running budget of $60 million, I may not be too far off with my assessment.
The accompanying article doesn’t fill me with any more confidence: author Adam Green mentions that the choreographer “is working with a group of arachno-chorus girls, who, requiring eight stiletto heels each, could be described as unusually leggy.” Pun aside, eight-legged chorus girls make me think of a nightmare with good production values. The entire saga of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark was beautifully summed up by Taymor herself: “I know it’s too much, but is that bad? Seriously, if you don’t want to do something ambitious that’s never been seen before, why do you bother?”
Source: Vogue
Published: Nov 15, 2010 07:47 pm