The Big Flop - Spider-Man Hits All the Wrong Notes with Guy Branum & Jessica McKenna | 3

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Marvel’s attempt at bringing Spider-Man to Broadway didn’t go as planned. With high-flying action and music by U2, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, was one of the most-hyped Broadway musicals of all-time... but by the time the final curtain closed, bones would be broken, lawsuits would be filed, friendships unraveled, careers destroyed, and millions of onlookers would be left wondering: “what the hell did I just watch?” On this theatrical episode of The Big Flop, comedians Guy Branum (Talk Show, the Game Show) and Jessica McKenna (Off Book) join Misha to hear the tangled tale of the Spider-Man musical, and the careers it took down in its web.Follow The Big Flop on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to The Big Flop early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. It's November of 2010. The Foxwoods Theatre in Times Square is buzzing with 1,900 people anticipating the first preview of the most expensive and technically advanced Broadway show ever, Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark. The first act goes relatively smoothly until right before intermission. Spider-Man is poised to leap over the audience and soar up into the balcony.

Mary Jane, Spider-Man's love interest, asks the masked hero, Who are you? Then he leaps, soars, I'm a girl! and gets stuck, dangling like a human piñata, all while the audience laughs. As cringeworthy as this moment was, it was only one sticky point in a massive web of disasters.

By the time the final curtain closed, bones would be broken, lawsuits would be filed, friendships unraveled, and millions of dollars flushed down the toilet. With a tangled web of accidents and injuries making headlines week after week, theatergoers are left wondering, could it also be the most dangerous? All the deals were bad. The budgets were bad. There was no money. The New York Times, it may rank among the worst musicals ever made.

We are on a sinking ship. From Wondery and at Will Media, this is The Big Flop, where we chronicle the greatest flubs, fails, and blunders of all time. I'm your host, Misha Brown, comedian and your friendly neighborhood social media star at Don't Cross a Gay Man. And today we're talking about Spider-Man, Turn Off the Dark. Hello, I'm Emily, and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy.

OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? Okay, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's Stone Cold icon George Michael. From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark

dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts or listen early and ad-free on Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. And here to help me dissect the biggest financial flop in Broadway history is comedian Guy Branum, whose credits include Bros and the series Platonic for Apple TV. And with us, we have Jess McKenna, actress and co-host of the podcast Off Book, The Improvised Musical with Zach Reno, where they create a new musical on the spot. Welcome to the show, everybody. Good to be here.

So Guy, what is your relationship to Spider-Man or comic book stuff in general? I was from a very small town and I didn't really have access to comics. They were fascinating, but it wasn't a deep nerddom of mine. While I was at G4 talking about a Spider-Man game, I did once say he had been very liberating by making people realize that shooting a white sticky substance onto other people could be a respectable profession, which is a joke that I have recycled many times since then. So I think that there is real charm in this character. So now, Jess, you have your improvised musical podcast. Have you ever improvised any musicals on it

about superheroes or Spider-Man specifically? We've literally improvised about Spider-Man, I think, three unique times. We set it in a Marvel sing-a-matic universe and the spider-man episode was just him and mary jane in therapy just like spider-man saying like yeah sometimes i need a few boundaries in my life which i feel like is why people come back to spider-man i feel like he really is the most relatable maybe because we meet him as a teen yeah i agree with that you know i think a lot of people can connect to the story of Spider-Man and Peter Parker,

and that's why I think that this show like really should have worked. So Tobey Maguire is kind of the catalyst for this story. Back in 2002, Spider-Man became the first movie to make over $100 million in its opening weekend. Marvel has big dollar signs in their eyes and want to take this franchise outside of just comic books and a screen.

They hire some producers, and they have no issues raising money for a Spider-Man musical. They raise $50 million, and they want this show to have crazy high-wire stuns set to pounding stadium rock music. And who better to write the music than U2? Not U2 here on the show with me, like the band U2. Well, if it had been us two, it probably would have fit a lot better. Probably would have been

great. But I mean, I do understand the point of bringing on like U2 specifically, because like in the moment in 2002, like U2 was killing it. You know, they'd won three Grammys for A Beautiful Day. They just played the Super Bowl halftime show. So Bono and The Edge, they were thrilled because they were burnt out and really tired from like winning at life, you know? And they get to just like write songs

that they don't have to tour and perform themselves. They just get to collect that royalty check. Not bad. And other big stars sign on, including Alan Cumming as the Green Goblin. All the theater babies are going to be excited to come see him. And then Evan Rachel Wood as Mary Jane. And Evan Rachel Wood was the moment back in the early 2000s, right? Yes. I think this was a missed opportunity. Instead of going to U2, they should have gone to Green Day, who already had their eyes on Broadway, just lean into like a pop punk aesthetic for Spider-Man. And this would have saved us both the flop of Spider-Man 3 and the flop of Turn Off the Dark. This was all getting started in like 2002 and Spider-Man 3 didn't come out until 2007, but it definitely would have been awesome.

Is this my one thing I would do if I could go back in time? So we have our feelings about U2, but would you peg Peter Parker as a U2 fan? I feel like Peter Parker probably liked a few U2 hits. I feel like there's a few that make a running playlist or a swinging playlist, but I don't know. Because I feel like every generation takes Peter Parker for themselves. So my Peter Parker does not like U2.

I think U2 is fundamentally dad music. There was never that song. Bad musicals have good songs in them all the time. And there was not that one thing that was just like, oh yeah, that's the song from Spider-Man that some kid might be singing to themselves the way, you know, Dear Evan Hansen, about as dark a subject as it was, teenagers were singing all the time. So I think we're all kind of in agreement that U2 was not the right choice. Since Bono and The Edge, they had never done anything for Broadway in the past.

A producer burned them an educational four-disc compilation CD of 60 songs from the last 60 years of musical theater. So they just force-fed them musical theater. And they listened to it, and they said, and I'm quoting, most of the songs are mockish, dopey, or just pants. Pants? Yeah, pants. Pants is Irish slang for something that sucks.

Wow. I got to take that apart. I got to sit in that. Yeah. And I also would love these compilations. I bet they're great. So they listened to all four of those CDs, and then they just decided to go in their own direction, stick with their gut, and just try

this like anthemic rock and roll-ish kind of music. And genetics. Spider-Man. Superhuman kinetics. Spider-Man. Muscle augmentation. And look at that. Web biogeneration. This looks like my work. So my question to both of you is, pants or no pants? That's pants. Pants.

There were some other songs, to be fair, in the show that do sound a little bit more like U2, and we'll play another clip. That's better as a song. I like enjoy it. But the thing about U2's lyrics, most of the time, something that I think is actually pretty genius about them, is they're like an empty vessel. That's a great point. In this show, though, U2 was not the only culprit. At this time, Bono and The Edge are actually buds with Broadway royalty Julie Taymor, and ask her if she would like to hop on the Spider-Man project. Julie Taymor is a big deal. She's been called the Steven Spielberg of theater. She's the writer and director of The Lion King musical, which is the highest grossing

Broadway show of all time. She is mother, Misha. She is mother. But she's also known for being very demanding and hands-on. Like, she made a lot of the masks for The Lion King, you know? So she's very, very talented. And here's a clip of Tamar on 60 Minutes talking about what draws her to certain projects. You've said something along these lines. I really love to go into something when I don't know whether I'll be able to pull it off. Yeah. I love it when people say, what a horrible, lousy idea. I think that's great. I hate the comfort zone. Let's put it that way. And Bono talking about why he specifically wanted Tamor on the project. I was told that the two of you wanted to do this with one condition

in the beginning. Julie Tamor was the only condition. That's right. Why? Julie Tamer was definitely a magician. You know, but she also has the reputation of creating very expensive productions, right? And, like, I remember the New York Post said that she never met a budget that she didn't blow past. One of my first jobs, the only year I lived in New York, was working at a bakery, and I did check her out once because she handed me, like, three credit cards at once, and they all said Julie Taymor. And I was like, huh, huh, hello.

And I think this probably would have been during Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark. She had a lot of credit cards though. Ready to buy that cookie. So Taymor reads a script and it's your standard Spider-Man origin story. New York high school student Peter Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider, has to balance the heroics with his love for fellow student Mary Jane, and then faces off against a supervillain known as the Green Goblin. She signs on, but she wants to make her mark on it, and she has other ideas for the story. Do you guys know what a Greek chorus is? I'm assuming you do. Yes. Yes. So for the people at home, it's essentially a handful of characters either

squabble at each other or speak in a homogenous voice, basically help the audience get along in the story. But Julie, she didn't just add in a Greek chorus. She created a geek chorus. She had to. It was right there. She had to. This is fun, though. She modeled the geek chorus after the scriptwriter, Glenn Berger, Bono, The Edge, and of course herself. I'm sensing a through line about, like, the role ego played in this disaster. I think so. But we do have a clip of the geek chorus. Look, there were these three goddesses called the Fates, and they determined everything. Your life, your traits.

Fates. What happens to free will? Free will? Free will! Like when they say that killing will. I get the point of a geek chorus. The one thing, at least in this clip, it looked a little stupid, like a high school play

in the setup of what this geek chorus was. It reminds me of in high school when I would try to get out of writing a paper and I'd be like, can I put on a little play instead? Yeah, it's very explainy. They aren't characters. It's bad writing. Here's the thing is that I'm going to defend Julie Taymor

because I love Julie Taymor. And I think she was so close to being right. She did not understand what these superhero origin stories are. She didn't understand that this story is the epic story. And she tried to layer this Greekness on top of it. And also, like, the Greek chorus, yes, you can say that it is, like, this thing from the past that's so anachronistic, but having choruses in musicals, having all the girls say something together and all the

boys say something together is very common and a rich part of this tradition. The problem is the fates. The problem is arachne. You know, you just brought up arachne, which there is that Greek through line that she was trying to add. So, I mean, instead of adding some already known or even lesser known Spider-Man villain, she just created her own, right? Arachne was based off of a Greek myth of a woman who challenges the gods to a weaving contest and turns into this immortal spider, right? And then in the show, she's an actress floating in a spider costume and, you know, with a posse of dancing spiders who like mess with Spider-Man's mind. But my favorite part about her was that she was also like really horny for Spider-Man. Slate describes one scene with Arachne writing, quote, She seduces Peter in what can only be described as a wet dream. Peter floats into the sky and circles Arachne erotically.

Parents may have trouble explaining this scene to their kids, in part because they won't understand it themselves. End quote. And Arachne is, of course, super jealous of Mary Jane and really want shoes?

What does that little Mary Jane have that I don't have? Two legs and a pair of shoes. Well, I have eight legs and... Get me the shoes! Uh-oh. I've watched clips of this before because it's like the visual of it. And of course, she has such a deep and rich visual palette and language. That's like one of her great strengths,

but it would have been so much more exciting to watch it like layered with a story we know, because I don't know, she did that with Lion King. There's a few additional songs in the stage version, but it's essentially the same story. I mean, I appreciate that,

you know, you don't want to just rinse and repeat, but she obviously knows how to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't Lion King actually the biggest Broadway hit of all time? So she gave you the biggest hit and she gave you the biggest swap. Even if she gave you something in the middle, it would still be huge by Broadway standards. I mean, there was one person capable of saying no to Julie Taymor, the producer, Tony Adams. He was Marvel's guy, and he was there from the very inception of this show. He produced the Tony Award-winning musical Victor Victoria, and also a bunch of Pink Panther movies. He was personally involved in getting you two to sign. So there was this three-year stretch between talking about it, getting

everyone to agree in theory, and actually signing folks like Bono and The Edge. So he went over to The Edge's apartment to finally get him to sign on the dotted line, and Tony Adams dies. Oh, whoa. Oh my gosh. Here is The Edge talking about it on 60 Minutes. I left the room to literally go and get a pen to sign the contract. And I came back in the room and he had gone into some kind of seizure. Oh my.

You know, so that's horrible. And there's nothing funny about it, right? But unfortunately, it was a sign of things to come. That is such a wild harbinger and twist and very sad and wild. But Jess McKenna, wouldn't you say in the musical about this, that's the act break? Like, the edges song upon seeing the dead body is what takes us to the intermission. That's so true. That is the rising action that sends you out to the lobby.

How about we take a little intermission of our own? So the death of Tony Adams was extremely unfortunate. And in place of Tony, an experienced Broadway producer, we got his lawyer, David Garfinkel. No. Oh, wow. No. David Garfinkel, though, he did have experience producing for TV, but he had never produced anything for Broadway. It is different.

Those are not the same skills. They're not the same thing. Very, very different. Exactly. The thing is, is like those successful Broadway producers, I don't entirely understand what they do. And I do think it's massaging everyone and being able to keep them in the zone that's right. And I can see how somebody's lawyer stepping in thinking that they knew the answer would not be able to do that, especially with Bono

on the one side and Julie Taymor on the other. Right. He just let Taymor run wild, literally forgetting Spider-Man's most important lesson that with great power comes great responsibility to keep your budgets in check. Yeah. Right? So while the ideas kept flowing, the cash

did not. And before previews even started, set building stopped. The production was out of money. Like, we all know that more creativity can solve a problem as well as money can. And there's such danger in having the option or the opportunity to solve it with money. Yeah. So the play had an operating cost of over a million dollars a week. That's good. To put that in perspective, they would have needed to sell out every single button chair

for four years to even break even. Broadway is such weird economics that I don't entirely understand. It does always seem so hard, but when you get the good ones, it works. I just feel like it's too many big things coming together and thinking that they're unsinkable. But also, to me, it is just like the removal of the experienced producer and the person to go to Julie Taymor and say, hey, you need to think within this space. So now it's around like 2009 and they had it. They ran out of money.

So Garfinkel finally did cave and brought on a Broadway veteran producer, Michael Cole. If you don't know who Michael Cole is, he produced like Hairspray, The Producers, Spamalot. So definitely had like the resume to back up like bringing him on. After that happened, they were able to raise even more money. So they're flush with cash again, but the win is short-lived. Because three months after Cole was brought on, Evan Rachel Wood and Alan Cumming drop out, citing scheduling conflicts. So they replaced Alan Cumming with Patrick Page.

And then Jennifer Damiano was Mary Jane. And then that's when up-and-comer Reeve Carney signed on to play Peter Parker. But they didn't know what they signed up for. And we finally get into previews. And for listeners who are not Broadway savvy, previews are a vital time for new plays to generate buzz and kind of work out the kinks of the show. And they generally only last a few weeks, maybe 20 shows or so. But Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark was such a hot mess. It had 182 previews, which had never happened before. It was not ready. There was a lot of technical issues. There was this $1 million gadget that was supposed to

shoot that sticky white web net for a final fight scene, and it literally never ended up working. Just a million dollars down the drain. Oh my gosh. Just put Silly String like we all used to do. Seriously. And then in the theater world, being superstitious is the norm, right? Yes. And so they brought in a ritual maven to try and cleanse the theater, like just in case it was cursed. And the maven said that they found the bad energy was coming from the pit in front of the stage.

They're going to blame this on good union instrumentalists. And now I'm envisioning a world, and I hope this is true, where the ritual maven is in love with the person who put together the compilation to teach you two about musical theater. And they just live in like a beautiful cottage. And if you're listening and that's true, please let me know. Well, they went full out.

Like they saged the theater, which made everything all better, right? Sure. Obviously not, because the injuries just like piled up after that. So one of the Spider-Mans had a stunt where he had to jump off of a ramp, and he performed it in a tech rehearsal, and he broke his toe. And like, okay, dancers break their toes

on Broadway all the time. Like, it's a toe. But then a different actor doing the same exact stunt in a showcase in front of investors, he snapped both wrists. Who invests then? Who invests then? And back to our favorite Greek god, Arachne, she was concussed when she was hit in the head by a falling carabiner, which I think the scientific term is being carabined in the head,

right? So she quit a few weeks later. After that happened, that's when Julie Taymor literally turned to Glenn Berger, the scriptwriter, and uttered the words aloud, we're cursed. They are. But then the worst one that happened in previews was when the aerialist fell 30 feet from the rafters because his cable wasn't properly secured. And he fractured his skull, ribs, vertebrae, and elbow. He did survive. But guess where he landed? In the pit.

No. Full of all the dark energy. A decade ago, I was at a gay party and we were playing games. And this one kind of hot guy kept like moving around strangely in his chair that didn't have a back. And then one kind of hot guy kept like moving around strangely in his chair that didn't have a back. And then everyone was very solicitous about offering their chairs that did have a back.

And I was like, why is everybody, I mean, Yang is hot, but why is everybody just like making such a big deal about this? And then I realized that he was suffering from injuries that had been sustained during the course of being one of the Spider-Men. And, you know, the physical toll that was taken on the gays of New York is a thing that I think needs to be dealt with. Whether we need a museum or not, I don't know. But I would say that this podcast is a good start. You know, I sang on cruise ships for a long time at the beginning of my career. And there was once a British female dancer in my cast. There was a fight choreography part with swords to Pirates of the Caribbean.

And one of the pits didn't come back up. So there's just this gaping hole on stage that she didn't see. And she's doing her choreography, stepping backwards, and she falls into the pit. And she was like severely injured, spent months in LA in a hospital before she could go back home.

And she's never danced again. Bet she wasn't the only dancer who ended up in a gaping pit while you were on that cruise ship. Am I right? So you've been on some then. So we just talked about what the show is probably most known for, its myriad of injuries, and previews of the show were overall a disaster. The stories jumbled, Spider-Men are left dangling, wires are dropping on the audience, set pieces are missing. I mean, it was a hot mess. So typically, critics wait until after previews to review a show, but since

the Spider-Man preview was so shocking, the critics ended up breaking their media embargo. the critics ended up breaking their media embargo. And the New York Times wrote that one audience member shouted out during a pause in the show, I don't know how everyone else feels, but I feel like a guinea pig today. I feel like it's a dress rehearsal. I mean, can you imagine an audience member just like shouting that out in the middle of a show? I love how inclusive they are. I love that they're like, hey, I got to check in with the middle of a show. I love how inclusive they are. I love that they're like,

hey, I gotta check in with the rest of you. Are you also feeling like a guinea pig at this current rehearsal that we're attending that doesn't feel like the final show? Does anybody else feel that way? Like, I love those Broadway fans who are such veterans that they understand themselves as part of the business. And the notion that one of them was just like, no, this is insulting to me as a member of

the audience, like, shocks me not at all. This doesn't feel like it even had a cue to cue. My favorite review and little spat that happened was Michael Riedel of the New York Post, which I feel is much like the Daily Bugle in the comics, right? He rips on Spider-Man so hard, saying that the show is an epic flop as the $65 million show's high-tech gadgetry went completely awry amid a dull score and baffling script. So that's the review. But my favorite part is Glenn Berger, the show's main script writer, did not appreciate that review. writer did not appreciate that review. And later he wrote in his tell-all book that Riedel was a quote, parasite-carrying, blood-sucking mosquito depositing the larvae of an elephantitis-causing filial worm under the skin of our show. Which I think is so funny. He's a good writer.

That's very well written. Very well written. Yes. However, this version of the show would never have an opening night. So basically, after all of this happened, it's abundantly clear that the show, it just isn't working. So the producers, along with Bono and The Edge, decide to revamp the show behind Julie Taymor's back in what they called Plan X. Ooh. And one of the parts of Plan X was to have Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

rework the entire script. And he was an accomplished playwright and comic book writer. He had worked on a bunch of Marvel stuff like Marvel Knights, Nightcrawler, and the sensational Spider-Man. He makes huge revisions to the Spider-Man script and songs were reworked.

They cut Julie Taymor's geek chorus and greatly scale back Arachne's role, including cutting her shoe song and giant fight scene she had at the end. The Green Goblin gets much more to do, including a whole new song called A Freak Like Me Needs Company. I'm a 6565 million circus tragedy The Altered Show is internally referred to as Spider-Man 2.0, and actually, before the Freak Like Me song, the Green Goblin literally calls his transformed body a 2.0 version of himself.

Yeah, Norman Osborn, 2.0! New and improved! Ten minutes a day with one of those shape-weight thingies. Oh, gosh. Little Patrick Page. But, you know, when Tamor found out about Plan X and the script changes, she lost it, which I think is fair.

Glenn Berger wrote that she went on a tirade and told him, you don't have a soul. But, you know, the show was ultimately being developed for nine years. Like, I really think you need to look at the way superhero movies get written. Superhero movies have four or five writers. Like, I think part of the problem with this is that they didn't feel like they could just pull it out of Julie Taymor's hands at the time when they needed to pull it out of Julie Taymor's hands.

I mean, I absolutely agree. And like this actually, it turned into like a huge fight. So Julie Taymor and Spider-Man parted ways in 2011. She cited creative differences. But then she later sued the producers because she said that she didn't get paid her royalties and only received her $125,000 director's fee. The company did settle with her and they avoided a trial.

But then they countersued her later saying that it took superhuman efforts to save the production from her and her choices. And then she blamed Bono and The Edge for like not showing up to rehearsals and being difficult to work with. So, I mean, it was just like everyone was just pointing the fingers at why the show was failing, but Julie's out. What I love is in this very, very Greek take on Spider-Man, Julie Taymor made herself a pair of wings out of wax and then flew too close to the sun. So Julie Taymor has been banished and the script rewritten. And finally, on June 14th, 2011, the world sees Spider-Man. The reviews were actually generally more positive than the preview shows.

For example, the New York Times wrote, this singing comic book is no longer the ungodly, indecipherable mess it was in February. It's just a bore. And then unfortunately, OSHA's review was less positive because they issued three safety violations and over $12,000 in fines for violating workplace safety standards. I mean, it is so easy in entertainment to think that what we're doing is fun and cool

and we have to take risks. But let us never forget when John Landis killed those three people making the Twilight Zone movie. Yeah, totally. And the injuries didn't stop. In 2013, another actor, he got his leg caught in a backstage lift and he had to be sawed out of the stage. And he had fractures to his leg and foot

and his doctors actually had to amputate three quarters of his foot. And I mean, like the poor guy. I mean, it was his Broadway debut. He then did sue the ironically named Eight-Legged Productions. Is horrendous. Oh my gosh. Wow. I did not realize they continued that long. Yeah. In my head, like the injuries were mostly a previews thing. And ultimately, The Curse got the best of the show. And it shut on January 4th, 2014, with a total of 1,066 performances and a historic $60 million in losses.

So you can say that they did it pro bono. It was rough around the edges. But you know, we'll be humming those songs for years. The one that goes like... You know what's crazy? When I was looking up the numbers, the show actually did make impressive money. Like, it had like $200 million in receipts.

And as of 2014, it was the 16th highest-grossing Broadway play of all time. When I hear that something made $200 million but still managed to be a $60 million loss, I'm like, somebody pulled off a really good swindle. Well, let's see if anybody came out on top and do a little, where are they now? Julie Taymor, as far as we can see, has done a few things in Spider-Man. She did like some Shakespeare and an opera that did well, but has yet to release another musical.

I mean, here's what I'll say. We're only now nine years from 2014, but I mean, that's how long these shows take. So yeah, I would like to see her direct more movies. I think that she is better suited to directing a movie where you can control a whole lot more where that's just not possible on Broadway. It's not a director's need yet. Yeah. Well, and you know, it's also funny. The musical got quite a bit of ridicule at the 2011 Tonys. Neil Patrick Harris, who was hosting, even did this bit where he told as many Spider-Man turn-off-the-dark jokes in 30 seconds. Spider-Man's the only show on Broadway where the actors in the cast are actually in casts.

I heard they're changing it from Spider-Man turn-in-the-dark to Spider-Man turn-off-the-dark! But apparently, Bono couldn't get enough of being the butt of a joke because he then forces his new U2 album on everyone's iPhones just nine months after Spider-Man's closing like an ugly baby that's being pushed into your arms. Oh my gosh. I mean, I feel like now I can only think of Peter Parker's being like annoyed at Q2. Yeah. Apple actually had to create a special tool for people to remove it. Yes. And it was when space was really precious and I was like, I can't get it off. I've tried several updates and I can't get it off. But okay, let's shift gears a little bit because here at the Big Flap, we do want to be positive people. So we'd like to give some silver linings.

So the show set a record for the highest attendance in a single week for a Broadway show with a total of 17,375 butts in seats. Wow. So good. They might have been hate-watching, but they were there. Yeah. And launched the career of Reeve Carney, who played Spider-Man. And he now stars in the Tony Award winning Hadestown with Patrick Page. I saw both of them in it, and

they were great. Can you think of any other silver linings here? I mean, the love story between the ritual maven and the playlist maker. I'm just committed to making that headcanon. I love cautionary tales. And so, I think

from now on, when you are putting your chorus boys to sleep and they are acting up, you can say, ooh, if you are not good, I will put you in a revival of Spider-Man, turn off the dark, and then you'll have to have

three quarters of your foot amputated. And then they'll be good and they'll go to sleep. Night-night, chorus boys. So given everything that you know about the show now, would you consider it a flop, a mega flop, or just pants? I do think this is just a classic flop because obviously they still made a ton of money. I feel like the memory about Broadway as a whole culture

is a little bit less held as like a movie flop. So I feel like maybe it can sink back into the dark. And yeah, I'm going to go flop. I'm going to go flop. I think it's a mega flop. It was a huge financial cost. It was huge reputations on the line. And all of these things crashed directly up against the iceberg.

The thing is, is like the iceberg wasn't something outside of them. They were their own icebergs. And I love that. That's the best kind of mega flop. So Broadway legend Stephen Sondheim once said, the dumbing down of the country reflects itself on Broadway. Based on like 2023, what would they turn into a Broadway musical next?

I mean, we'll probably just see Baby Yoda lying on a piano before we meet our end. Lastly, Jess, could you improvise an acapella meta musical number about Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. If you're looking for the darkness well hey i say you found it step a little closer but stop shy of the pit and then we'll turn the page we'll finally turn the But first we gather round and light up the sage.

We were cursed. We were cursed. We were cursed from the start. Cause you can't ever turn off dark. Musical improv is always the best thing to watch. You're just like, how did you not fall in love with that person? Yeah, speaking of creative geniuses. Well, thank you to our lovely guests, Guy Branum and Jess McKenna.

And thanks to all of you for listening to The Big Flop. Listen next week to find out what happens when you ask 40 children to form their own society and then film it all for reality TV. I'm joined by the hosts of the very funny podcast, I Love My Kid, but comedians Megan Gailey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Braunohler. God, this is insane that this was put on TV. If you like The Big Flop, you can listen early and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music.

Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. slash survey. The Big Flop is a production of Wondery and Atwill Media, hosted by me, Misha Brown, produced and edited by Levi Sharp, written by Marina Tempelsman, engineered by Zach Rapone. Our executive producers are Rosie Guerin,

Will Malnati, and Samantha Story for At Will Media, developed by Christina Friel. Legal support provided by Carolyn Levin of Miller, Korzenik, Summers, Raymond. Producers for Wondery are Matt Beagle and Grant Rutter. Senior producer is Lizzie Bassett. Senior story editor is Phyllis Fletcher. Managing producer is Ricky Wiebe. And Executive Producers are Morgan Jones and Marshall Louis for Wondery. We are on a sinking ship.