Spider-Man Musical Set For February 2010

If you couldn’t stand the highly commercial/mostly instrumental soundtracks for the three installments of Spider-Man films, Broadway‘s musical tale of the web-slinging super hero, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, directed by Lion King musical creator Julie Taymor, might suite your tastes better…

That is, if you’re a U2 fan who also enjoyed The Beatles tribute film, Across the Universe. Broadway announced Tuesday that the musical, which will feature music and lyrics by Bono and The Edge (some of it performed by Evan Rachel Wood as Mary Jane), will open in February 2010 at the Hilton Theatre.Check out this news clip from Manhattan announcing the show…

BBC reported that previews of the performance will begin showing in January, although it is unknown what these will entail.

Nothing has been announced in the way of who will play the singing, dancing villains (or which ones would be included for that matter), but there is speculation that Jim Sturgess will again pair up with Wood to play Peter Parker (and Spidy, of course).

Personally, I’m hoping for appearances from Venom and the lesser-known Carnage. Venom and his black suit, which is actually a violent alien organism, would make perfect sense for the musical considering its title. This is me being extremely optimistic, but I’ve got a lot of reservations about a Spider-Man musical, or any super hero musical. These days, Broadway is running with the Hollywood trend of bad remakes and adaptations. Need an example? Legally Blonde. Enough said.

However, Taymor says that her show will have an all new twist (aside from singing and dancing) on the Spider-Man origin story. If she can take a Batman Begins sort of angle and get Bono and The Edge to write songs without dropping excessive political innuendoes, she might be on to something…

What do you think about Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark? Can the Marvel classic cross successfully into the realm of musical theater?