U2’s Bono and The Edge have revealed they are bringing a new bad girl to their Broadway production of “Spider-Man” when it opens next year.
“We’ve got a new villain, it’s a girl,” Bono told BBC Radio 1 in a new interview. “It’s a very extraordinary role. We’ve taken it to a much more dizzy place than you’d expect.”
The Irish singer and his guitar-playing bandmate wrote the music and lyrics for “Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark,” which is slated to start previews on Broadway in New York City in February 2010.
“We’ve got big tunes,” Bono said of the music they’ve written. “We’re very proud of it.”
The musical follows the story of a teenage Peter Parker, who turns into Spider-Man after being bitten by a radioactive arachnid. The actor set to play Peter has not been announced, but Bono said he will be a different kind of hero than audiences expect.
“Our Peter Parker is much more… not Kurt Cobain, but a kind of slacker, a more kind of shy sort of guy,” the singer said.
Scottish actor Alan Cumming will star as Norman Osborn and his alter-ego, the Green Goblin, while Evan Rachel Wood will play Peter’s neighborhood love interest, Mary Jane Watson.
“She’s the greatest actor of her generation, she’s the one to watch,” Bono said of the former “Wrestler” star. “She happens to sing like a bird, it’s like a true voice.
“She’s a very pure spirit and a very bright mind and she brings the part of MJ to life, really,” he added.
The Edge has described the production as “more like an opera than a straight musical,” but don’t expect the web-slinger himself to perform any of the numbers.
“We made one rule for ourselves though that we would never have Spider-Man singing. A guy singing in tights can’t happen,” the guitarist said.
Copyright © 2024 by NBC Universal, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be republished, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.