U2’s ‘Spider-Man’ Musical Loses Star Alan Cumming
The beleaguered Spider-Man musical has just been dealt yet another blow: actor Alan Cumming, cast to play the Green Goblin in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, has left the production due to scheduling conflicts, EW‘s Pop Watch reports. Cumming’s departure from the show — which features music by U2‘s Bono and the Edge — comes just weeks after the exit of actress Evan Rachel Wood, who was set to play the lead female role of Mary Jane, leaving the delayed musical without their two principal actors. Only newcomer Reeve Carney, who will play Spider-Man sans mask Peter Parker, remains in the cast.
As Rolling Stone previously reported, the escalating price of the Spider-Man musical forced producers to shut down production on the show in August 2009, citing “unexpected cash flow problems” that ultimately bumped the show’s planned preview run from February 2010 to dates still unannounced. With no preview schedule in sight, Wood quit in March. Cumming, who has seen his role on the series The Good Wife expanded since he signed on to Spider-Man, found he would be unable to balance both jobs. “He’s disappointed,” Cumming’s representative told Pop Watch. “He’s been attached to Spider-Man for a year and he was hopeful that it would make it to the stage and he’d be a part of it.”
U2’s Bono and the Edge crafted original music and lyrics for Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, which reunited Bono with his Across the Universe director Julie Taymor. While the musical now has some major league casting to do, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark still has a rumored target date of fall 2010 for its opening.