Spider-Man musical is having issues.
Shocking. When you think about the talent involved with Evan Rachel Wood, music from U2, and Julie Taymor’s apparent ridiculous spending totaling somewhere around 45 million (!!!). Vulture reports:
Michael Riedel reports this morning that production on 2010′s Julie Taymor–directed, U2-scored Broadway musical Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark — now budgeted at $45 million, apparently — is on “hiatus” because money’s run out. Hilariously, that’s not even its most pressing problem. The show’s lead producer, David Garfinkle, a Chicago showbiz lawyer with little producing experience who magically usurped authority following the death of the original producer in 2005, has been unable to reign in Taymor’s excesses, hence the out-of-control budget, says Riedel. Even Bono’s mad!
Apparently, Bono and The Edge are pretty furious and want a replacement for Garfinkle by the end of business today. In the mean time, for all the money they are spending, I imagine ticket prices when this thing opens in March 2010 will be through the roof. Considering, the problems Broadway is having I really hope they can pull this together, while curbing costs on that will eventually be reflective on ticket prices, making it tough for those of us DYING to see this musical. (Which is a first for me to say, because I hate musicals).
The (Friday) Walk of Shame #3.
We apologize for the lack of a Walk of Shame for last week, there wasn’t much shame to have regardless, as there was a ton of nothing to read last week. So without further ado, here we have our third issue of THE WALK OF SHAME with Jeff Ayers and yours truly.
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DAVE: I’m about halfway through LOCKE & KEY vol. 1, and I have to say this 
book is completely brilliant. Bode, that kid, holy shit, I haven’t read better characterization of a kid that age since Vaughan was on RUNAWAYS. That moment between he and his mother while he’s fishing for treasure about the homework assignment where he did a comic about his father’s death was completely heart-wrenching and beautiful. I mean, Hill earned that Eisner nod on that page alone.
JEFF: And Gabriel Rodriguez’s art is ideally suited for the story. It’s somehow gritty and brutal, and often unrelentingly tense, but he can balance it out with tenderness and nice characterization. Draws great facial expressions. He’s got a real passion for the story and it shows. He also worked on an adaptation of Clive Barker’s Great and Secret Show, which I also dug.
Have you read any of Joe’s prose? His novel Heart-Shaped Box and short story collection 20th Century Ghosts… They’re pretty terrific, too.
The guy’s really talented.
Absolutely, Ty’s expression when his cousin says to him about being more famous than famous people now was detailed perfectly. The dead stare on Sam’s face is perfectly indicitive of a killer without emotion. I can’t say I’ve ever seen an artist who matches up Hill’s characterization with his line work. The looks on Duncan and Kinsey’s face when Bode tells that Owl/Echo joke. Totally brilliant.
That’s something not often discussed- comics stories best told through facial expressions. AKA The Steve Dillon Experience. Preacher would have been nothing if, say, Jim Lee or any other action oriented comicker took a crack at it.
Yeah. Its been a long time since we’ve had something like that. What other books do you think work like that?
Allred’s Madman, to an extent. Hewlett’s Tank Girl. Jaime’s Love& Rockets. Tons of books are made by the artist’s facial expressions skillz…
What did you end up getting this week?
Picked up the Irredeemable trade, and the subsequent 5th ish (a steal at 99 cents), the Pax Romana trade because I have a Jonathan Hickman man-crush, and um, ah, um, um Star Trek Alien Spotlight on Q… cuz I’m a dork.
You?
Oh, and of course the obligatory Wednesday Comics.
Picked up: Iron Man, Deadpool: Merc with a mouth, World of New Krypton and Locke and key. Yeah that Pax Romana shit is so ground-breaking. Hickman has really done something to change the style comics design. I got the first couple of issues of Pax but missed on the final few, I wanted to pick it up but thought it was too many trades on the day.
Was a huuuuge week for nice books. My pockets can’t keep up.
There was also that new TMNT reprint. 30 bucks, but it’s sooo sexy.
Right, yeah, I saw that. Really beautiful. You know what I just noticed I’m watching DEXTER and that kid who played Doomsday on SMALLVILLE plays the the suspected serial killer stalking Dexter. He was terrible on Smallville but he is so creepy good on this its awesome. Ever watch Dexter?
Love it. Fantastic show. Never read the books it’s based on, but been meaning to.
Yeah, the books sound great if its anything like this. This is a brilliant show. What did you like the most from this week?
Michael C. Hall. That guy’s fantastic. What’d I like most. Um. There’s a lot of books out this week, but I got the most enjoyment out of…. the new Q Star Trek issue. I hate being so honest. I have the Q Virus!!!
Jesus. Why?!
Because that’s how I roll. And I haven’t read every book that came out this week to find something to trump the Q. Love that character.
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That concludes the third issue of THE WALK OF SHAME. Tune in next week for another issue.
Rick Remender on the end of Fear Agent.
I might cry. Really. Rex Mundi is ending, Fear Agent, and I just don’t know what else to say anymore. Remender spoke with Comic Book Resources on the end of his project:
“This will lead us into our sixth arc, which will pretty well be the most nonlinear story I’ve ever written,” Remender said. “Time consumption, the null bang and more Jellybrains… unbridled imagination is the name of the game on this last arc. It’s also a good place to set it down and take a break for a while.”
Remender is wrapping up it so he can focus on his Marvel work. Though Heath will return for a lead-up to the “Fear Agent” movie. Well at least there is that happy news. Remender said he didn’t want to feel like he the character was overexposed or being overextended with the feature film gearing up and his involvement with that. So, he will be setting up a prelude to the film as a relaunch.
He did, however, feel a pang of sadness, having worked on the character for as long as he has.
When you invest so much time in a character — we created Heath in 2004 — you become very connected. Writing Heath is a joy, never a moment of pause to catch his voice or wonder how he’d react,” Remender said. “I know the character in and out and that makes writing an exercise in showing those nuts and bolts to the reader, it’s just a pleasure to write ‘Fear Agent.’”
Sad, but hey. There’s gonna be a movie, so not that bad really.
McFarlane discusses Marvelman news.
Everyone has been talking up the Marvelman business, from Neil Gaiman, to Mark Buckingham and Rick Veitch. Now the man who previously owned the rights to Miracleman, talks to Comic Book Resources and says:
“Here’s what I know as a guy who’s been living a complicated life: I will be having meaningful conversations with my lawyer when I get home.”
Complicated in the sense, that it just isn’t clear what is going on. Melrose details how McFarlane came to have a stake in this character.
McFarlane entered the picture in 1996, when he purchased for $40,000 the creative assets of bankrupt Eclipse, which supposedly included the Marvelman licensing agreement with Warrior publisher Quality Communications. Although McFarlane apparently had plans for Marvelman, those rights eventually became leverage in his dispute with Gaiman over ownership of the characters Angela, Cogliostro and Medieval Spawn. It later emerged, however, that Marvelman was not part of the Eclipse assets, and that Quality never owned the rights in the first place.
Oh I see. Except for the fact that the character, when owned by McFarlane, was titled Miracleman. Right? The name was changed to appease Marvel. So, that’s why in the weeks after Comic Con we haven’t heard anything from McFarlane. Though it does take some time to lawyer-up, and present suit but I don’t think there’s much McFarlane can do. For me, considering when McFarlane had the character, he was known as Miracleman. With Marvel buying the character known as Marvelman, I would say the only rights Marvel has to the character’s stories is under that name, or whatever rights Gaiman, Veich, et. al give them for their stories. So, I guess, McFarlane doesn’t have a legal recourse when it comes to “Marvelman.”
Whatever. Clearly, I’m into this whole situation and I’m sure I’ll be annoying the hell out of you all with it until the day the first issue of the new series comes out.