Are you still smarting from director Patty Jenkins‘ ousting from Thor 2? Well, don’t hold your breath, because unless Lionsgate is hiding some female directors under their hat as their trump card for the rest of the Hunger Games franchise, that sinking feeling of despair that women never get to direct major franchise films isn’t going away any time soon! But we here at the Mary Sue can at least help dull the pain by reminding you that if you’re looking for talented female filmmakers, the odds actually are in your favor.

It’s hard to deny that Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark‘s long and frequently disastrous production seemed to improve precipitously after the departure of original director Julie Taymor, and the musical just raked in the biggest single-week box office in Broadway history. That week was the days between Christmas and New Years, quite the popular time to go see a show… also a pretty popular time to visit New York if you’re not generally just hanging around the Tri-State area.

Taymor is in the process of suing the current showrunners for making “unauthorised and unlawful use” of her work, and the producers are suing her right back. Broadly they’re suing her for breach of contract by not listening to producer concerns, but specifically for, wait for it, insisting on “on developing a dark, disjointed and hallucinogenic musical involving suicide, sex and death.”

You know, we were saying to ourselves just the other day, ”Hey, we haven’t heard anything terrible about Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark for a while.” Sorry, guys. Looks like we jinxed you. The comic book-turned-Broadway musical that had been plaugued by disaster after disaster pretty much since its inception has made news today with two interesting bits. It’s been revealed that Julie Taymor is the only director of the show eligible for a Tony Award this year and the producers are being sued by one of their investors.

Unless you’ve been living in some kind of internet-free cave for the past year or so, you’ve heard of at least some of the many foibles the mega-budgeted Broadway musical Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark has faced. Injured actors, fired directors, overhauled budgets and story. It’s by far the most expensive Broadway show of all time, and everyone from late night hosts to The New Yorker to two Tony Awards hosts in a row have taken a swing at it. Not to mention every theater geek in the country. Now, Sesame Street, the surprising source of many a hilarious parody, have taken their turn. Let’s hope they don’t feel the wrath of Bono.

(via Youtube)

Our long national nightmare has only begun, ladies and gents! May 12 (next Thursday) marks the return of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, the Broadway musical originally conceived by Julie Taymor only to go horribly wrong, several times over again. Well now it has been “reimagined” by a new team — co-producers Michael “Stepped in Dog Poo” Cohl and Jeremiah Harris — and it’s time to turn on the … lights? I don’t know. It’s wrong to have expectations. Let’s just hold our collective breaths and hope no one dies.

Michael Cohl, one of the producers taking over Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark after Julie Taymor‘s tenure ended abruptly last month, has provided this super-encouraging quote on the musical he is currently reworking and whether or not it will ruin his reputation as a producer:

“It might … It’s a matter of the respect of those whose opinions I care about. Most will recognize that [co-producer Jeremiah Harris] and I stepped in dog poo and are trying to clean it up and pull off a miracle. We might not.”

Well, there’s something to look forward to! Dog poo. Dog poo that might still be dog poo when all is said and done. So, go ahead and make those reservations, dog poo-lovers! The show comes back in previews on May 12.

In other news, Christopher Tierney, who played Spidey in the original production and was hospitalized after falling from the Spidey stage back in December, will return in his original role. That, my friends, is a trooper.

(Comic Book Resources)

This weekend will mark the end of Julie Taymor‘s production of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Not the whole show, just her version of the show which is now being reworked since her firing last month. Much like the plague survivor in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, this show is not dead yet. It will return May 12 after a complete creative overhaul with a new production team. But I’ll bet you were wondering what kind of hot mess you’ve been missing!

What, exactly, should one expect from a Spider-Man musical? As a fan of Spider-Man, I have to say I was initially rather disheartened to hear that a big-budget Broadway musical based on Spider-Man was being produced, by Julie Taymor of all people, whose work in theater can not exactly be described as “bare bones.” And then Bono and The Edge … yeah, there was that, too. I mean, sure, that one song from Batman Forever was pretty cool (when I was 15), but a whole entire two hours or more of that? Weird. Super, super emo, if I’m being honest.

So, I’m not going to go into how that show turned out (or didn’t). But I will give a one-sentence refresher on Justin Moran‘s The Spidey Project: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, which ran last night at the PIT: This is exactly how to take on a Spider-Man musical.

At 1800Recycling.com.