IN this econ omy, every body’s tight ening their belts. Every body, that is, but Julie Taymor.
The genius director of “The Lion King” has never met a budget she didn’t blow right past.
Case in point: “Spider-Man,” her new show – extravaganza, really – whose budget has ballooned to $40 million, making it the most expensive production in theater history.
Some of the people involved (there are dozens and dozens, with more being added daily) are starting to blanch at the price tag. With straight faces, a few are running around town saying things like: “Well, it’s $40 million now, but we think we can get it down to $35 million.”
Let’s see.
If – and it’s a big “if” where Julie The Lion Taymor is concerned – they do bring it in for $35 million, “Spider-Man,” with a weekly running cost of $1 million, will have to run about 8,000 years in a Broadway theater just to break even.
“It’s off the charts,” one source says. “Off the charts.”
The musical has a rock score by Bono (quite a good score, I’m told; the messy book is another matter) and is being produced by Sony, Marvel Comics and David Garfinkle, a lawyer who managed to get control of the musical after its original producer, the much-missed Tony Adams, died of a heart attack three years ago.
This crowd has very little theatrical experience, which is apparent since nobody seems to have the wherewithal to say: “$40 million, Julie? Are you out of your f – – – ing mind??”
Where’s all that money going?
Well, a lot of it’s earmarked for “designers.”
There’s a set designer and a costume designer and a projections designer and a fight designer and an aerial designer and a graphic designer and a film designer. In short, if you’re a designer of any kind, you’ve got to get on this gravy train.
“Julie’s called designers – I mean people who aren’t just designers but who have their own companies – and offered them jobs,” a source says.
“The Playbill is going to have 18 pages of designer bios.”
“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.
The “Spider-Man” crew has been all over the Hilton Theatre.
That’s the worst-kept secret in town, but nobody’s saying anything official because poor, deluded Mel Brooks still thinks “Young Frankenstein” is going to run longer than “Cats.” (It’s not going to run longer than January.) But the Hilton, horrible barn that it is, is the only theater big enough to accommodate Taymor’s massive web of a show.
Theater insiders blame Disney for her out-of-control spending habits.
“The reason she worked with puppets most of her life is because she never had much of a budget,” a source says. “But then Disney came along and gave her $25 million to do ‘The Lion King.’ ”
Her shoestring days are over, and now, the source adds: “She doesn’t care what it costs. Does not care at all. Her attitude is: It’s for the art, and you don’t question artists.”
Even when the show they’re working on is “Spider-Man”?
NICE to see that Mat thew Broderick is returning to Broadway. He hasn’t been around since that tepid revival of “The Odd Couple” two years ago, when he wasn’t off book until the final week of the run. Matthew will star in Christopher Hampton‘s “The Philanthropist” at the Roundabout.
Says a wag: “I hope there aren’t too many lines in it.”