Pete The Chop

Actors replacing departed stars are announced

By Daniel Kreps, Rolling Stone

The Broadway musical Spider-man: Turn Off the Dark, featuring original music by U2's Bono and the Edge, will finally debut this winter, after production delays led to the departure of its two marquee stars. Producer Michael Cohl said today that preview performances start November 14th at Broadway's Foxwoods Theatre, and that opening night is scheduled for December 21st. Jennifer Damiano will fill the role of Mary Jane Watson, and Patrick Page will play both Norman Osborn and the villain Green Goblin. The actors join Reeve Carney, playing Peter Parker.

Production for Turn Off the Dark shut down in August 2009 due to "unexpected cash flow problems," ultimately bumping the musical out of its scheduled February 2010 preview run. Because of the delays and the uncertain nature of the production, both actress Evan Rachel Wood, who was to star as Mary Jane, and Alan Cumming, in the Green Goblin role, quit. Wood's replacement, Damiano, has rock-on-Broadway roots thanks to her Tony-nominated role in Next to Normal. Page, the new Green Goblin, has experience behind a mask, having played the Grinch in the Broadway musical of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.

Bono and the Edge, who wrote both the lyrics and music for the show, remain firmly in place. Last year the Edge said that the music "touches on opera, it touches on rock & roll. There are some real character-driven songs as well, very unusual song types for us."

Tickets go on sale to American Express cardholders this Saturday, August 14th. The general public will be able to buy them in September. More details are available at the official site.

Copyright 2010 Rolling Stone

Tags: Film News, filmnews, newyork, spiderman, turnoffthedark by Jonathan
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Richard Carter, Wichita Times Record News

It cost an audience of about 30 people exactly $1.02 to see U2 play at a club in Dallas on April 2, 1982.

The show at Dallas's Bijou was promoted by former FM radio station Q102, and the Irish band was supporting its first album, "Boy." Nearly three decades later, $1.02 wouldn't buy a single bottle of water at a U2 show or even cover a small percentage of the ticket surcharge.

With ticket prices up and shows limited, someone had the idea to record a concert film of the band with multiple 3D cameras and release it in movie theaters. Nowadays, it's a heck of lot cheaper to see any band in a movie theater than to buy tickets, drive 150 miles and fight traffic and pay for parking.

Truth be told, I would have preferred to see U2 play live in 1982. It has less to do with ticket prices and more to do with seeing a more energetic, primal band performing songs from what early fans, like myself, still think is their best album.

What the theatrical release of "U2 3D" has going for it is crystal-clear sound. Multiple camera angles are edited to the point where a viewer sees a goodly amount of views switched back and forth on the performers and the stage.

Also, the band is tight. Bono is in good voice, the drums and bass are joined at the hip and The Edge's playing and solos are pretty much CD-perfect. For those people who cannot afford to see U2 play live, this movie in a lot of ways is a good substitute.

There are also some artistic ideas present in the film that suggest future possibilities of the 3D format for DVDs and movie theaters. Near the end, the 3D film is effectively merged with multiple letters, words and sentences in a variety of colors and fonts.

But while the film's 3D images can be an interesting effect, it can also become tiresome and lead to the typical drive-in movie cliches. Especially annoying are the repeated images of clapping hands to simulate the experience of being in the live crowd.

What would be very interesting is to see a band that is a little more cutting-edge than Hannah Montana or U2 as the subject of a 3D film with the director experimenting more with layering images and visual language.

As much as "U2 3D" is really meant to be the next best thing to a live concert, there really is no substitute for seeing a band live and close up. That includes the joke of going to a stadium and watching a band "live" on a screen from 800 rows away.

Devout U2 fans will still likely enjoy seeing the four lads play to a perfectly in-sync audience that comes off as programmed. The performance is also way over-rehearsed, with The Edge switching guitars on every song.

Things have sure changed over the years, when the youthful band first came over and The Edge played fiery guitar lines on a Gibson Explorer guitar for the whole show. I even kind of miss Bono's mullet.

And, all for only $1.02. Whatever happened to live rock music?

© 2007 The E.W. Scripps Co.

Tags: Film News by Jonathan
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