'Spider-Man' Budget Balloons to $40 Million
The New York Post's Michael Riedel reports today that Julie Taymor's big-budget Spider-Man Broadway musical has gotten even bigger. The budget for the show has reportedly reached $40 million, making it the most expensive production is theatre history, according to Riedel.
Riedel notes that with a weekly running cost of $1 million, Spider-Man "will have to run about 8,000 years in a Broadway theater just to break even."
From "Taymor's Web of Riches":
In this economy, everybody's tightening their belts. Everybody, that is, but Julie Taymor.
The genius director of The Lion King has never met a budget she didn't blow right past...
Spider-Man has gotten so expensive, some people working on it think it should bypass Broadway and head straight to Las Vegas, where it might have a shot at making money. Maybe. One day. When pigs fly.
But a high-ranking production source insists the show will definitely open on Broadway next year.
Much of the money is reportedly going to various designers. "The Playbill is going to have 18 pages of designer bios," a source told Riedel.
As Blog Stage reported a while back, the Spider-Man crew has been checking out the Hilton Theatre -- where Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein is currently running. Riedel notes that Frankenstein probably won't last past January even though Brooks is certainly hoping for a longer run, and the Hilton is the only space big enough to house Taymor's grand vision for the web-slinger.
But does Riedel have to be so mean about it? Read the full New York Post story.
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