RIALTO CHATTER: SPIDER-MAN Will Swing To Broadway Later Than Planned

Bloomberg News is reporting that Spider-Man The Musical will have to wait a little longer for his Broadway debut because of production delays that have troubled the $31.3 million musical featuring songs by U2.

Bloomberg reveals that "rehearsals for the most expensive show ever produced on the Great White Way have been put off from this spring, according to senior members of the production team, who declined to be named because an opening date has not been announced".

The sources reveal that the musical will have a workshop in the late summer and begin rehearsals in the late fall for a Broadway opening at the Hilton Theater likely in early 2010.

"This is the third time the date has been changed so far," one of the production people said to Bloomberg.

This person added that the high cost of producing the show "has never been an issue because the producers aren't tied to the market." The reasons for the delay, this person said, have to do with still-unresolved creative decisions by a team headed by director Julie Taymor.

"Spider-Man" is being produced by a small consortium that includes HELLO Entertainment/David Garfinkle; Martin McCallum, a former top executive in theCameron Mackintosh organization; and "Spider-Man" publisher Marvel Entertainment.

The people involved in the production said that preliminary work on the show would begin this spring, in preparation for the summer workshop.

"But everything's been changed, so don't assume it won't change again," one person revealed to Bloomberg. To read the entire Bloomberg News report click here.

"Spider-Man (Peter Benjamin Parker) is a fictional character, a Marvel Comics superhero, created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko. The character first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15 (Aug. 1962), and has since gone on to become one of the most popular, enduring and commercially successful superheroes worldwide, and is arguably Marvel's most famous character. When Spider-Man first appeared in the early 1960s, teenagers in superhero comic books were usually relegated to the role of sidekick to the series' main character. The Spider-Man series broke ground by featuring Peter Parker, a teenage high school student to whose "self-obsessions with rejection, inadequacy, and loneliness" young readers could relate. Spider-Man has since appeared in various media, including several animated and live-action television series, syndicated newspaper comic strips and a successful series of films starring actor Tobey Maguire as the character.

Marvel has featured Spider-Man in several comic book series, the first titled The Amazing Spider-Man. Over the years, the Peter Parker character has developed from shy high school student to troubled college student to a married teacher and a member of the superhero team the New Avengers," state press notes.

Taymor, who won a Tony Award for directing the Broadway musical The Lion King and who is also known for equally visually imaginative films such as Titus and Frida, helmed the recent Metropolitan Opera production of The Magic Flute, as well as productions such as Juan Darien, The Tempest, and Oedipus Rex.