Corona | Coming Attractions

Made for a rumored $60 million dollars, the Broadway-bound Spider-Man musical (!) Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is slated to open in January 2011. The actors have rehearsed, the sets have been built, the costumes have been sewen and the tickets have gone on sale. So what does Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark look like?

The first images from the Julie Taymor influenced production have arrived, and they're weird in that Julie Taymor kind of way.

Taymor's always been a filmmaker that's known for her wild visual side. Look at her adaptations of William Shakespeare's Titus (1999) or The Tempest (slated for release next month), Frida or Across the Universe and you'll see that she's a daring visionary when it comes to fashioning new looks at old source material. So when it came to design the visual look of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Julie Taymor seemed like an interesting choice to make. She didn't disappoint.

The Broadway production sees Spider-Man face off against several of his better-known foes including the Green Goblin and Carnage. There's also a new female villainess named Swiss Miss and Spidey's redhaired love Mary Jane Watson figures prominently in the story. But will audiences that went to go see the Spider-Man movies take in a Spider-Man play? And conversely, will theater audiences take a Spider-Man play seriously?

Investing in stage musicals has always been a risky gamble. Taymor helped infuse her creative talent into The Lion King musical and that worked, plus the Spidey show will feature new music by U2's Bono and The Edge, which compels media writers like myself to mention this fact in their stories. But will it be enough?

Next month we start to find out. For now, look at Vogue's five photos from Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and speculate.