We already knew the musical Spider-Man: Turn off The Dark is going to be closing on Broadway this January, but its financial difficulties go beyond "middling" ticket sales, as producer Jeremiah J. Harris put it.

In total, the show is on track to lose a staggering $60 million. Investors are reportedly furious.

While Broadway flops usually lose $5 million to $15 million, “Spider-Man” will lose far more, given the show’s record-setting $75 million capitalization; the enormous weekly costs of running this special effects-laden production; and its operating losses of hundreds of thousands of dollars a week this fall, as the box office faltered.

Quite a few investors in the show said they had no idea the show was closing until producers announced it Monday, and a handful said they haven't earned any of their stake in the show back and will have to write their investments off.

The blame seems to lie not with the show's management, but with what was simply an unsustainable operating budget. The show cost anywhere from $1 million to $1.3 million per week to run. It also had considerable loan debt to pay off.

The Times notes that producers attempted to do some stunt casting -- namely, getting Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons to play the Green Goblin -- when ticket sales started slipping. None of that worked out.

At least one of the investors, Terry Allen Kramer, said she didn't know if the show would be a success in Las Vegas, either. Producers are planning to revive the show there, at a not-yet-revealed venue, in 2015.

[Via NYT]

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