Entertainment

‘Spider-Man’ blame Taym

The Lion Queen is being dethroned.

As I reported last week, the producers of “Spider-Man: We Are Lost in the Dark” are indeed throwing Julie Taymor under a bus.

The new director is likely to be — wait for it! — Christopher Ashley.

(What? Who?)

Ashley’s competent enough, but, in the chapel of Broadway directors, he’s definitely in the second pew.

READ MORE: ‘SPIDER-MAN’ STILL SCHEDULED TO OPEN MARCH 15

Taymor, director of “The Lion King” (worldwide gross: $4.5 billion) is going to be replaced by Ashley, director of “Xanadu” (worldwide gross: 12 cents).

(Phil McKinley, a director from Barnum & Bailey, who sits in the fourth pew, was an early choice to “help” Taymor, but declined.)

That’s not the only juicy gossip coming out of the Foxwoods Theater, where “Spider-Man” is now in its fourth month of previews.

I also hear the producers approached Aaron Sorkin, who won the screenwriting Oscar for “The Social Network,” about lending his name to the production. He wouldn’t have to write much — the producers were going to hire a team of comic-book writers to do that — but he has such cachet that if he were associated with the show, critics would have to give it a second look.

Sorkin, who’s not exactly short of a buck, was amused, but passed.

Rick Miramontez, a spokesman for the show, declined to comment on the Sorkin offer.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, one of those comic-book writers, will have a go at Taymor’s baffling script, for which he’s being paid about $20,000, sources say.

To put in whatever changes Ashley and Aguirre-Sacasa want to make, “Spider-Man” is going on hiatus at the end of April for four to six weeks.

The plan is ludicrous, of course, but so is everything else about the show, from its $65 million budget to its bone-breaking special effects.

A lot of veteran producers think “Spider-Man” should go on permanent hiatus.

“What’s Chris going to do in a month?” a producer wonders. “Maybe he can pace it better, but he can’t change the physical production. The show is unfixable.”

The box office, which was hot when people were getting injured, has cooled off. Yesterday in Times Square a kid handed me a flyer offering orchestra and front mezzanine seats for $99 during the week and $79 for the Wednesday matinee.

(No wonder the comic-book writer is getting only $20,000.)

The question now is: Does Taymor go quietly or put up a fight?

I hear her “team” — Simba, Nala, Kukla, Fran and Ollie — is in “crisis mode.” Taymor could, if she’s ticked off enough, bring the whole thing down. As a co-author, she can forbid the producers from changing a word of her script. In which case they’d have to come up with a completely new story.

That might not be a bad idea, though somebody should have thought of it two years ago when she was pillaging Ovid for characters like Arachne, the mysterious Spider-Woman who hijacks the second act with a lot of pretentious feminist nonsense.

Or Taymor could step aside temporarily, take a much-needed breather and then return to make some changes of her own before the May reopening.

“That’s the ideal scenario,” says a source. “But right now, nobody knows how it’s going to play out.”

I’ve been tough on Taymor — she sat behind the wheel when this show went off the cliff.

But she shouldn’t take all the blame. Bono and The Edge bear just as much responsibility as she does.

Their music is boring and pretentious; their lyrics are often incomprehensible.

They spent nine years on this show and wrote 19 lousy songs. What makes anybody think they can come up with “Send in the Clowns” in six weeks?

But nobody’s trying to replace Bono.

Better to pin it all on poor, defeated Julie while Mr. Humanitarian skates off scot-free.

We’ll see about that when Bono unveils some new songs when the show reopens.

May I have earplugs with my Playbill, please?

michael.riedel@nypost.com