Remembering "Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark" @ 10

Every few years, Broadway theater permeates the culture -- usually a with a big megahit or two. Most recently, obviously, was Hamilton in 2015/2016 (it had some good company that year with Waitress); twenty-odd years ago, at the turn of the century, it was The Producers and, a few years before that in the 1990s, it was The Lion King and Rent (which had a great companion in 1996 with Bring in Da' Noise, Bring in Da' Funk and the reboot of Chicago) which followed other megahits from the 1980s like Cats, Lez Miz, and Miss Saigon. 

2011 was another of those years but it was unique in that it saw one of Broadway's biggest megahits and megaflops -- The Book of Mormon and Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark. 

Of the two, Spiderman held all the promise of being the bigger hit -- after all, it was based on one of the most popular comic book franchises of all time, it had music by Bono and The Edge of U2, and it was directed by Juliette Taymor who had achieved greatness with The Lion King. Spiderman had BIG HIT written all over it, a pre-sold sure-fire success.

Eh, not so much.

The book and music had problems, lots of problems (Bono and The Edge were rarely available because they had to tour, etc.) and Taymor's budget grew so out of control that she was ultimately fired. The show went into previews, the word-of-mouth was awful, and eventually the show closed and was re-worked before officially premiering. Due to advance ticket sales the show actually ran for a while but eventually it closed with no Tony glory and millions of lost dollars and lawsuits (even inspiring a brilliant SNL skit). Today, people are remembering it for the disaster that it was -- and even Mr NYC chronicled its troubles at the time (yes, the blog has been around that long that it's remembering, as history, events it wrote about at the time). 

Meanwhile The Book of Mormon, written by the South Park guys and Bobby Lopez of Avenue Q (this was pre-Frozen, etc.) was being quietly developed but, when it opened -- WHAM! It became a megahit instantly, the biggest one since The Producers and before Hamilton, and it continues its sucessful run to this day (COVID-19 interruption excepted). I saw and raved about it back in 2012 -- and could listen to its soundtrack forever. In fact, think I'll go do that right now ...

But here's to Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark at ten -- it may have been a bad show and a big flop but it certainly wrote a colorful chapter in the history of the Great White Way.