This weekend, you didn’t need a tingly spidey sense to know that something very wrong was up with the Julie Taymor/Bono/the Edge megamusical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Gossip-tainer Michael Riedel and actual journalist Gordon Cox of Variety both indicated that production on the (estimated) $40 million behemoth had halted at the Hilton Theatre. Taymor wanted to rehearse the show with complete sets and effects in the space itself. Kinda like the way Richard Foreman crafts his annual shows at the Ontological Theater—only a tad more expensive. Yesterday came official word from Hello Entertainment, one of the production’s lead producers:
Due to an unexpected cash flow problem the Broadway production of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark has been forced to suspend its activities until this can be rectified. The plans necessary for this correction are in hand now and it is expected that activities, including work in the theatre, will resume within the immediate future and with no material impact upon the planned production schedule. Preview performances are expected to begin on February 25, 2010, as previously announced.
If in fact the show goes on, and the budget somehow miraculously doesn’t fly north of $40 million, can this project possibly make its money back? We appeal to the CPAs in the Upstaged audience. Hilton Theatre: 1,821 seats. Hypothetical average ticket price: $90. Weekly operating costs: $400,000 $700,000 (that could be low). Okay, go for it!
I think if it averages 90-95 percent capacity (figure 1,700 tix a show, 8 show weeks) minus $700,000 a week in operating costs. . . . It’ll be a goddamn miracle, but possible to recoup after about a year and a half?
So, doing some back-o-the-envelope type calculations… The normal bway musicals try to keep their nut at around $700K (or so I’m told). $700K at $90 a ticket gets you 1,311,120 a week. (90*1821*7)
1,311,120-700K = $611,120
A $40 Million budget will recoup in 65 weeks. Or roughly 1.25 years.
But some industry estimates are saying it’ll take 5 years to recoup! How is tha tpossilbe? Let’s play with the numbers
I’m going to say thatthe show will in fact cost $50 Million ($40 Million budget + additional capitalization of $10 million is not unrealistic) and that its weekly nut will be $1 million, figuring that Taymor, Bono and The Edge’s royalties will be high and that name actors will be in it at least for the first year. I base this on what some industry people have told me and that $700K is around what a normal musical’s nut is and this ain’t a normal musical.
Sooo… let’s run the numbers again:
90*1821*8=1,311,120
1,311,120 - 1,000,000 = $311,120 a week
50,000,000 / 311,120 = 160.71
This would take 161 weeks to recoup. That’s over three years. That seems more likely, but I could just be being pessimistic.
But let’s say for a moment that Spider-Man is a MONSTER HIT (which is what they’re counting on) and it sells out to capacity at full ticket price, like LION KING or THE PRODUCERS in its early years.
Well that’s a horse of a different color! Then you’re talking about 1821 seats at $131.00 a ticket!
1821*131*8=1,908,408
At that pace, the show would recoup in…
50,000,000/908,408 weeks or a little over a year.
So if it does *Really well* it must keep doing *really well* for three years to make money. If it’s the biggest his in Broadway history, it still takes over a year.
While, I was really curious as to how this production would turn out, I’m not surprised by the fiscal problems the show’s having with the investment backing…
In any case. We’ll see how it goes. In the meantime, where’d you come across that wonderfully awesome picture of a spiderman walking with a wheelie suitcase?