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Bono and The Edge came out swinging against ousted “Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark” director Julie Taymor yesterday — the eve of the unveiling of their revamped Broadway show.
“The hours and weeks and months — if we thought it would take this long [to complete], there is not a chance on earth we’d have done it,” Bono told The New York Times.
“The first time I loved ‘Spider-Man’ was 2½ weeks ago,” admitted the U2 lead singer, who co-wrote the music with bandmate The Edge.
The $70 million extravaganza — with over-the-top acrobatics and scenery that made it the most expensive musical in Broadway history — was shut down in April for a major redo following onstage injuries during previews, scenery malfunctions and criticism over its tangled plot.
Taymor, acclaimed as the director of the Broadway smash hit “The Lion King,” had been fired a month before.
The new and supposedly improved version is set to premiere at the Foxwoods Theatre on West 42rd Street tonight.
The Edge said Taymor was given the boot after it became a question of whether she was with them when they and producers decided to go on hiatus for an overhaul, which had been referred to as “Plan X.”
“When Plan X was presented, she said, ‘That could never be achieved in a three-week period. You’d need months to do that, and it probably won’t work anyway for X, Y, and Z reasons,’ ” the guitarist told the Times.
“At that moment, when that was her response, the producers felt that whatever Julie would do with a hiatus was more of a polishing job than a top-to-bottom rethink of the show.”
Still, the rocker danced around the question of whether he and Bono had plotted against her.
“Julie was clearly exhausted, overwrought,” The Edge said of the days leading up to her axing.
“We were tiptoeing around her.”
Both he and Bono assumed a portion of the blame for the musical disaster — but mainly for not being around to rein in Taymor.
Last fall, the rockers said that when they did manage to sit in on workshops for the play, they should have gotten their first major hint of trouble.
But Bono said he felt paralyzed.
“Julie was trying to wrestle with the logistics as well as the art, and that’s when I felt fairly impotent,” Bono said.
Taymor was unable to be reached for comment.