some insight into the financials of spider-man, and how the successful weekly gate totals mentioned in the post above don't really tell the entire story
How the Numbers Add Up (Way Up) for ‘Spider-Man’
By KEVIN FLYNN and PATRICK HEALY
For anyone stumped by how the producers of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” could have possibly spent $75 million on that show, more than twice as much as any production in Broadway history, the web is untangling.
Financial statements submitted this month to New York State by the production detail how the show spent $9 million — a sum equal to the entire production cost for the hit musical “The Book of Mormon” — on sets, costumes and shoes. (Remember that dance number, now jettisoned, in which the six-legged spiderwomen flashed a lot of footwear?)
More than $1 million went to the show’s lawyers. Another $6 million was paid to its stagehands.
Even the producers acknowledge that with such high expenses, at the show’s current earning level “Spider-Man” would need to run more than seven years to recoup what investors have poured in.
“The bad news is that it was very expensive,” said Michael Cohl, one of the lead producers, “and the good news is that we will not quit and we will make this a success and that’s that.”
The biggest hurdle facing the show is its operating expenses — $1.2 million a week as of early January, when accountants did their last measure for the state report. That is just about what the show has earned in recent weeks, meaning its high box-office receipts are no guarantee of financial success.
On top of the operating expenses, the show owes as much as $100,000 a week on an $8 million construction loan taken out to renovate the Foxwoods Theater, where the show plays.
But Mr. Cohl said expenses had declined recently and that the show, revamped since April, now had operating costs of only about $1 million a week. Even at that level, though, producers still face enormous pressure to sell tickets at top dollar. At full price — $275 for a premium seat, $67.50 for the back of the balcony — this show, in one of Broadway’s biggest theaters, could potentially earn as much as $1.9 million a week. But it has been bringing in only between $1.2 million and $1.3 million a week recently, despite nearly selling out, because many tickets are sold at discount.
The financial statements were part of a routine filing to the state attorney general’s office, which monitors theatrical productions that solicit investments from the public. The statements detail the show’s cumulative expenses through Jan. 2. As of that date, “Spider-Man” reported spending $58 million and raising $66 million. Nearly a third of the money, about $20 million, came from loans, not investors, an unusually high proportion for a Broadway show.
“Everything about this show is unusual,” Mr. Cohl said. “Most Broadway shows don’t cost $20 million, let alone have a loan for $20 million.”
Only about a quarter of Broadway shows ever recoup their production costs. For those that do, like the recent revival of “Hair,” success can come quickly. “Hair” earned back its $5.8 million in production costs in five months. Only 18 Broadway shows have ever run for seven years or longer, including two current hits, “The Lion King” (nearly 14 years) and “Wicked” (nearly eight years). By comparison, the runaway hit show “The Producers” ran just six years.
Brand-name musicals often do well in the summer tourist season, slump in the fall and rebound during the holidays. “Spider-Man” will face its first real box-office test in September and again in January and February, traditionally the worst-selling months on Broadway.
The production, originally titled “Spider-Man: A Musical Web,” was envisioned as a $20 million show as recently as 2007, according to its offering papers at the time. Those papers also outlined plans for productions opening in Las Vegas in 2009 and London in 2010. But its original producers had trouble raising money as the budget grew, and Mr. Cohl and a co-producer, Jeremiah J. Harris, took over in the fall of 2009. At the time, the show had already run out of the money in the middle of renovating the theater, a project that included installing 1,930 seats.
Mr. Cohl and Mr. Harris blame many of the cost overruns on their predecessors and on the many years it took for the show to open — it has been in development since 2002.
“Had we started this show originally, Michael and I, it would have been done for considerably less,” said Mr. Harris, a Broadway producer and technical supervisor for more than three decades. “I’m going to say that if it hadn’t been for all the delays and everything else, the budget would have been 30 percent less than what it is.”
The cost of the delays is evident in the $4 million spent to rent the theater for nearly two years before performances began. Most productions rent a theater for just a few months before opening.
Other costs, though, are connected to the outsize ambitions of the show, which its original creators, Julie Taymor, the director, and the rock stars Bono and the Edge of U2, envisioned as not just a musical but as what they described in interviews as a “rock ’n’ roll circus drama.”
There are some 60 people in the cast and band, large by Broadway standards, and 40 stagehands. The costume team includes up to 23 people at one time: 4 designers, 4 shoppers and 15 dressers. And the flying sequences are among the most complex bits of staging ever attempted on Broadway. To pull them off, the expense sheets show, the producers have spent more than $2 million on harnesses, flying rigs and the many hours involved in refining the logistics.
Another big-ticket item this spring, a three-week hiatus to revamp the musical, is one reason the show’s production costs are now estimated to be at least $75 million.
Going forward, the production plans to try raising its gross profits, which it could do by discontinuing the sale of its tickets at discount outlets like the TKTS booth in Times Square. Merchandising and the cast album have potential as additional revenue sources, as do plans to tour, though the flying sequences would probably need to be greatly simplified.
One place where the producers have not spent any money, according to Ms. Taymor, is in paying her the royalties she is due. (Ms. Taymor was fired in March after creative clashes with the producers, but retains her credit as director.) The statements filed with the state say Ms. Taymor earned $36,000 in royalties for the six-week period ending Jan. 2. The producers said she was paid at least some portion of that amount, although they would not specify. But Ms. Taymor has filed for arbitration, insisting she has received only a director’s fee of $125,000.
Given the expenses of “Spider-Man,” Broadway professionals like Tom Viertel, a producer who won Tony Awards for “Hairspray” and “The Producers,” said it was difficult to see how this musical ever makes money, unless its offshoot productions are very innovative.
“ ‘Spider-Man’ has the most daunting set of costs and recoupment schedule that I’ve ever seen on Broadway,” he said, “by a factor of four or five.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/t...ayp&adxnnlx=1308856316-wjtSDk50CzRPBcQvnJGciA
How the Numbers Add Up (Way Up) for ‘Spider-Man’
By KEVIN FLYNN and PATRICK HEALY
For anyone stumped by how the producers of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” could have possibly spent $75 million on that show, more than twice as much as any production in Broadway history, the web is untangling.
Financial statements submitted this month to New York State by the production detail how the show spent $9 million — a sum equal to the entire production cost for the hit musical “The Book of Mormon” — on sets, costumes and shoes. (Remember that dance number, now jettisoned, in which the six-legged spiderwomen flashed a lot of footwear?)
More than $1 million went to the show’s lawyers. Another $6 million was paid to its stagehands.
Even the producers acknowledge that with such high expenses, at the show’s current earning level “Spider-Man” would need to run more than seven years to recoup what investors have poured in.
“The bad news is that it was very expensive,” said Michael Cohl, one of the lead producers, “and the good news is that we will not quit and we will make this a success and that’s that.”
The biggest hurdle facing the show is its operating expenses — $1.2 million a week as of early January, when accountants did their last measure for the state report. That is just about what the show has earned in recent weeks, meaning its high box-office receipts are no guarantee of financial success.
On top of the operating expenses, the show owes as much as $100,000 a week on an $8 million construction loan taken out to renovate the Foxwoods Theater, where the show plays.
But Mr. Cohl said expenses had declined recently and that the show, revamped since April, now had operating costs of only about $1 million a week. Even at that level, though, producers still face enormous pressure to sell tickets at top dollar. At full price — $275 for a premium seat, $67.50 for the back of the balcony — this show, in one of Broadway’s biggest theaters, could potentially earn as much as $1.9 million a week. But it has been bringing in only between $1.2 million and $1.3 million a week recently, despite nearly selling out, because many tickets are sold at discount.
The financial statements were part of a routine filing to the state attorney general’s office, which monitors theatrical productions that solicit investments from the public. The statements detail the show’s cumulative expenses through Jan. 2. As of that date, “Spider-Man” reported spending $58 million and raising $66 million. Nearly a third of the money, about $20 million, came from loans, not investors, an unusually high proportion for a Broadway show.
“Everything about this show is unusual,” Mr. Cohl said. “Most Broadway shows don’t cost $20 million, let alone have a loan for $20 million.”
Only about a quarter of Broadway shows ever recoup their production costs. For those that do, like the recent revival of “Hair,” success can come quickly. “Hair” earned back its $5.8 million in production costs in five months. Only 18 Broadway shows have ever run for seven years or longer, including two current hits, “The Lion King” (nearly 14 years) and “Wicked” (nearly eight years). By comparison, the runaway hit show “The Producers” ran just six years.
Brand-name musicals often do well in the summer tourist season, slump in the fall and rebound during the holidays. “Spider-Man” will face its first real box-office test in September and again in January and February, traditionally the worst-selling months on Broadway.
The production, originally titled “Spider-Man: A Musical Web,” was envisioned as a $20 million show as recently as 2007, according to its offering papers at the time. Those papers also outlined plans for productions opening in Las Vegas in 2009 and London in 2010. But its original producers had trouble raising money as the budget grew, and Mr. Cohl and a co-producer, Jeremiah J. Harris, took over in the fall of 2009. At the time, the show had already run out of the money in the middle of renovating the theater, a project that included installing 1,930 seats.
Mr. Cohl and Mr. Harris blame many of the cost overruns on their predecessors and on the many years it took for the show to open — it has been in development since 2002.
“Had we started this show originally, Michael and I, it would have been done for considerably less,” said Mr. Harris, a Broadway producer and technical supervisor for more than three decades. “I’m going to say that if it hadn’t been for all the delays and everything else, the budget would have been 30 percent less than what it is.”
The cost of the delays is evident in the $4 million spent to rent the theater for nearly two years before performances began. Most productions rent a theater for just a few months before opening.
Other costs, though, are connected to the outsize ambitions of the show, which its original creators, Julie Taymor, the director, and the rock stars Bono and the Edge of U2, envisioned as not just a musical but as what they described in interviews as a “rock ’n’ roll circus drama.”
There are some 60 people in the cast and band, large by Broadway standards, and 40 stagehands. The costume team includes up to 23 people at one time: 4 designers, 4 shoppers and 15 dressers. And the flying sequences are among the most complex bits of staging ever attempted on Broadway. To pull them off, the expense sheets show, the producers have spent more than $2 million on harnesses, flying rigs and the many hours involved in refining the logistics.
Another big-ticket item this spring, a three-week hiatus to revamp the musical, is one reason the show’s production costs are now estimated to be at least $75 million.
Going forward, the production plans to try raising its gross profits, which it could do by discontinuing the sale of its tickets at discount outlets like the TKTS booth in Times Square. Merchandising and the cast album have potential as additional revenue sources, as do plans to tour, though the flying sequences would probably need to be greatly simplified.
One place where the producers have not spent any money, according to Ms. Taymor, is in paying her the royalties she is due. (Ms. Taymor was fired in March after creative clashes with the producers, but retains her credit as director.) The statements filed with the state say Ms. Taymor earned $36,000 in royalties for the six-week period ending Jan. 2. The producers said she was paid at least some portion of that amount, although they would not specify. But Ms. Taymor has filed for arbitration, insisting she has received only a director’s fee of $125,000.
Given the expenses of “Spider-Man,” Broadway professionals like Tom Viertel, a producer who won Tony Awards for “Hairspray” and “The Producers,” said it was difficult to see how this musical ever makes money, unless its offshoot productions are very innovative.
“ ‘Spider-Man’ has the most daunting set of costs and recoupment schedule that I’ve ever seen on Broadway,” he said, “by a factor of four or five.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/t...ayp&adxnnlx=1308856316-wjtSDk50CzRPBcQvnJGciA
At the end Reeve Carney/Spidey swung up to my platform and landed right in front of me, and the performance got a standing ovation. We loved it. 
( I know Alan Cumming has one of those too from when he was originally cast.)
