Will Spider-Man Be the Most Expensive Musical Ever?
Remember back in July when we told you about the Spider-Man musical? The one with the questionable plot device involving a Spider Goddess spinning Peter Parker’s story. Oh yeeaaah, that one.
Michael Riedel, the Broadway beat reporter for the New York Post is reporting that the budget has swelled to $40 million, for now, with a weekly running cost of $1 million per week of its run. To break even, the show would have to become one of the longest running shows in history.
The show is in one of New York City’s largest theaters, a score written by U2’s Bono, and brought to life by an army of designers.
Director Julie Taymor, who rose to fame for Disney’s Lion King musical, has a spotty track record. The story reports that investors are becoming worried. It doesn’t help that in this economy, theater attendance is expected to dip.
Is your Spider Sense tingling, Peter?
Glen Keane, a veteran animator who has worked for Disney since the late 1970s, has had to drop out of directing Rapunzel. The talented animator, one of the first artists at Disney to embrace the computerization and digital options, has a non-threatening ailment but has had to cut back his work.
Cinema Blend
Gotta love those studio bigwigs. Even in the midst of an impending Screen Actors Guild strike and the greatest financial crisis in modern American history, these head honchos still have dollar signs in their eyes. 
The cast for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is rounding out with the addition of Anne Hathaway as the White Queen opposite Helena Bonham Carter’s Red Queen according to 
Walt Disney Studios’ [[[Sleeping Beauty]]] holds up as a spectacular work of animation and it looks even better now that the studio has cleaned it up. The classic fairy tale has stood the test of time quite nicely and the Platinum Edition 50th Anniversary 2-disc set, released today, is a worthwhile addition to your home video library. It’s a great artifafct, and the end of an era of amazing animated fare from Disney Studios. Every anuimated feature that has followed, through today, somehow pales in comparison to this effort.
Filmgoers like dogs it seems as Disney’s Beverly Hills Chihuahua captured the box office crown this weekend. According to estimates from Box Office Mojo, the film took in an impressive $29,000,000.
Imagine an inter-company "Crisis" style crossover that included The Muppets, The Incredibles, Farscape and even some of the cast of Cthulhu. Ok, farfetched, but all these titles from one company are not. We have the latest from Boom! Studios, plus:
or 
In the old days, Disney was paralyzed by indecision as executives kept trying to imagine “what Walt would do.” Under recent management, the studio has been expanding in many different directions, including adding foreign points of view to their filmmaking. The studio is now proceeding with making live-action film under a new Walt Disney Pictures India banner.
We just love bears here at ComicMix. Be it real bears, scary bears, Gummi Bears or Care Bears, we can’t get enough of these furry fellas! That’s why we’re pleased as punch to report that two famous bears are coming to a big screen near you.
