Now that the show is making bank, the gloves are off in the fight between Julie Taymor and the producers of Spider-Man: The Song That Never Ends Turn Off The Dark. Remember how last year the fired director sued for more money? Well, today producers fired back and meow! According to them Taymor's suit is simply "an attempt to put Taymor in the same position she would have been had she fulfilled her obligations under her agreement and actually written a book for the Spider-Man Musical that could be opened on Broadway."
According to the producers, Lion King director Taymor refused "to fulfill her contractual obligations, declaring that she could not and would not do the jobs that she was contracted to do." And it goes on. They say that although "many producers would have simply given up on the production" when the shit hit the fanactors started dropping, the producers then "engaged in superhuman efforts to save the Musical." (A PR guy somewhere is getting toasted for that one tonight).
And it doesn't stop there! The producers lambast Taymor for trying to claim copyright on the show's story:
any similarities...exist by virtue of the fact that they are both based on the same pre-existing works in which Taymor cannot claim copyrights, including, but not limited to, the Spider-Man comic books and the Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 films, which originated all of the main characters in the works at issue in this case, their settings, the Spider-Man origin story premise, and the plot elements that appear in the works."
And just for good measure they give a taste of a zombie plot-point so batshit it didn't even make it into the 1.0 version of the musical! Apparently in Taymor's original treatment "Spider-Man bites Mary Jane turning her into a Spider-Woman, who then attacks [the show's then villain] Arachne." Imagine!
Oh, and they also today filed a antitrust lawsuit against the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society, Inc., LOH, Inc. and Julie Taymor.
Meanwhile, while we are on the topic of special-effects heavy musicals popular with people unfamiliar with English, The Phantom of the Opera is set to play its 10,000th performance next month. On the plus side? There are still no new plans to bring the Phantom sequel, Love Never Dies, to Broadway. Always look on the bright side of life, people!
