SPIDER-MAN budget reaches 40 million!- Page 3

[musicaltheatrefan3]

Posted: 10/9/08 at 12:12am

But if it has a weekly running cost of $1 million, it would have to make more than "Wicked" each week, meaning that they would need to increase ticket prices by a lot, and possibly do a renovation in the theatre that it will be playing at to make more seats. So, let's go with the idea that they do that, and it makes about $1.5 million each week. Then, it will play for years and years and years (more than 30, I think the article said 8,000 to recoup) WITHOUT MAKING ANY PROFITS! AND IT WILL PROBABLY SUCK!!!! They need to either quit right now, or DRASTICALLY decrease the budget by more than $20 million.

[Scott Briefer]

Posted: 10/9/08 at 12:18am

The Post article is incorrect. It states that 40 million is the most expensive theatrical production ever. I suspect they mean Broadway... KA, Cirque's MGM Grand production cost over $180 million. It's quite spectacular and worth every penny.

[perfectliar]

Posted: 10/9/08 at 12:43am

Well if the rumor of them wanting to invert the entire stage is true, I understand why they're spending $40 million. And I'd gladly pay full price to see exactly what other crazy sh*t goes down on stage.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 10/9/08 at 6:23am

People were equally skeptical and contemptuous of Taymor's The Lion King when that project was first announced. That show's (unpublicized) budget was also astronomical, even at 1998 prices. I'm not crazy about her films, but Taymor's work still carries the day over at Lion King through the longueurs of the lesser moments of that show's book and score. Here, though he gets the composer wrong, even Riedel encouragingly says the score for Spider-Man is good. I think turning the Hilton over for what must be a major physical extravaganza is also a good idea, since nothing else seems to land across the footlights in that theatre.

So while I understand the trepidation over the potential ticket prices on this one, I again say that if someone wants to spend $40 million on a Broadway musical and give Julie Taymor free reign to let her imagination and her designers run wild, then I'm curious to see the results.

Updated On: 10/9/08 at 06:23 AM

[Rotel1026]

Posted: 10/9/08 at 9:21am

I've heard two numbers rumored for Ka in Vegas. 180 and 225 million. While that show is pretty spectacular with what they do with the stage, I believe that amount takes into account the renovation of the theater. The theater belongs to MGM though, so I'm not sure who is giving that estimate since Cirque and MGM do not release their numbers for such things.

And it's funny how some people are getting all worked up over the amount being spend on this. Remember that if someone is spending it, there's someone on the other end getting paid for something. So how is employing people such a bad thing in this economy?

[RentBoy86]

Posted: 10/9/08 at 10:44am

What are they doing to the stage? Inverting it?

[perfectliar]

Posted: 10/9/08 at 11:33am

One of the early rumors was that they would turn the entire set on its head during a scene where Peter Parker was dangling upside down.