Critics Are On Their Way To Extinction!

And, as a Spider-Man supporter, I couldn't be happier.

The mostly scathing reviews have had no effect on sales, much to the chagrin of the lame-duck lot of theater snobs posing as critics.

They should all be ashamed of themselves. To not find ANYTHING redeeming in a show still in previews smacks of agendas and desperation. Enjoy yourselves now, critics. Your days are numbered.
Very numbered.

1. The reviews came out LESS than 24 hours ago: how much of an effect would you expect to know about?

2. I doubt their agenda is to close the show. They are reporting what they saw.

3. I saw the show. The lights were pretty. Some of the sets were. But that's not very interesting to talk about. Between this board and "real" friends, the vast majority have all agreed -- the show is subpar. The are seeing what I saw. And I saw it 6 weeks ago.

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Baileyboo, I'm with you. But, I'm sure nobody is surprised about that.

I too have spent much of today thinking that the Internet is making much of newsprint obsolete. Sad actually, especially if we're replacing the Ben Brantley's with the likes of many of the posters here. Not sure which I loathe more.

It's not like Baileyboo just joined BWW today, claimed to have been a lurker for years yet never posted before, and asked everybody to think about how hard the cast is working on Spider-Man and how sick it is for people to want them to be out of work.

I also think Baileyboo hits on something with the critics asserting their relevancy in a world in which their form of media is DYING. They don't really care about protecting the public from the evil machinations of the Spidey crew; they obviously put aside whatever professional rivalries they have (and that no one particularly cares about) in order to reach the decision that they would review the show NOW. Otherwise, there's every chance the show would never "officially" open and they would be completely left out of the loop.

The only people who hate a critic-proof piece of merde more than me (I'm looking at the green girl and the Barbie doll) are the people whose column inches are shrinking as fast as circulation of their newspapers. For Taymor and Co to completely bypass them as people continued to come to the show whether the critics weighed in or not could have been their Alamo.

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There is more word of mouth today than there has ever been in the history of theater.

The horrible word of mouth has definitely been out about this show since before the first performance.

This doesn't change the fact that the critics who decided en masse that the show had to be reviewed TODAY were trying to squirt very pungent urine to claim their dwindling turf.

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Squealing babies raise their voices when they're being ignored.

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Except Michael Feingold who is a treasure trove of historical knowledge that he connects to contemporary productions of all types.

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The "pile-on" of bad reviews only made me want to see it more.

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The critics were cool to "Wicked" when it opened and it hasn't hurt the box office. I haven't see "Spiderman" yet---so I can't give an opinion, but I think word-of-mouth and exciting potential disasters sell more tix than the critics words.

ErikJ-

I agree with you that this production should have been further along, given the time it has had to gestate. The "no out-of-town tryout" excuse only goes so far. Having said that, I think the show has much quality to it.

I wonder if Baileyboo would have started this thread if the reviews were all positive?

Another friend of mine who works in the industry saw it this week, "Mind numbingly boring!" was the review.

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The extinction of a species is very serious. I can't believe the flippancy with which we are discussing it.

I feel it is our responsibility to avoid Spider-Man, and in so doing validate the critics in order to help preserve their species.

Take a second and consider how worse off we would be if there were no more official review threads to keep us entertained for every opening.

It is truly a nightmare scenario. Won't you please do your part to help?

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