Metro

Bowing out of ‘Spidey’

The rats may soon be fleeing that sinking ship known as “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”

With the opening postponed for a sixth time so that Bono and his new team can overhaul the embattled $65 million musical, many exhausted and demoralized cast members are ready to call it quits, production sources say.

Dancers and chorus members are on six-month contracts, which expire at the end of May.

This week, after firing director Julie Taymor, the pr ducers pushed back the opening until sometime in June.

Which means more long and tedious days for a company of actors who have been performing and rehearsing this epic disaster for four months.

“They’re fed up,” says a production source.

A group of dancers have, I’m told, made an informal pact to leave at the end of May.

The mass exodus would force the producers to find replacements, who would then have to be trained to perform the show’s bone-breaking stunts.

Four cast members have already been injured, including Christopher Tierney, who famously tumbled into the orchestra pit and broke his ribs.

The leading actors in the musical are signed up through November, although Reeve Carney, who plays Peter Parker, has a clause in his contract that could allow him to get out sooner.

Carney’s said to be worn out, and some production insiders fear he may bolt as well.

But sources close to the actor say he’s planning to soldier on until the opening, whenever that turns out to be.

Cynicism prevails backstage.

As one person puts it, “If the dancers all leave, we’ll just use it as another excuse to postpone again.”

News of Taymor’s ouster and yet another delay hit the cast hard on Wednesday.

Some of the younger actors threatened rebellion, saying they didn’t want to perform the show that night, production sources said.

But Isabel Keating, a seasoned Broadway veteran who plays Aunt May, quelled the rebellion, reminding everyone that they were professionals and had a show to do.

Bono also tried to calm things down. He gave a pep talk an hour before the curtain went up and said the coming changes “are in the best interests of the show.”

The plan is to eliminate a lot of Taymor’s pretentious and garbled plot, add more special effects and a handful of new songs and turn the show into tourist-friendly spectacle.

But old Broadway hands who snicker at the very mention of “Spider-Man” are skeptical.

The sense is that unless Bono decides to play Peter Parker himself, this musical is on its way to becoming the biggest flop in theater history.

Additional reporting by Lachlan Cartwright