At the fairly recent press day for The Wrestler, a red-haired-ish Evan Rachel Wood talked enthusiastically about prepping for her Broadway debut in the form of Julie Taymor’s Spider-Man. “Rehearsals start in June and we’re supposed to go up in October,” said Wood. “I don’t know who’s playing Peter Parker yet — I’m still trying to convince Jim Sturgess to do it. But it’s incredible. Julie Taymor is taking it to the next level, just like she did with The Lion King. When I heard she was doing it I thought, ‘What, why?’ And then she asked me to come in and do the workshop run-through of it, so I got to learn all the songs and kind of see it acted out, and it’s incredible. It’s going to be really amazing. They’re using a lot of new flying techniques and different things for Spider-Man, and Bono and the Edge did the music for it, and I think it’s some of their best work. I didn’t know how well they would do writing for a musical, but they did an awesome job.”

So from where does the Spider-Man stage story take its cues? “It takes stuff from the first and the second movie, but it’s more about
the original Spider-Man comic books and really where Spider-Man came
from,” explains Wood. Taymor “is taking it back to Greek mythology stuff, so it’s crazy. And there may be (an upside-down kiss) at the end. But Spider-Man never sings on stage in tights; he’s never there singing in the Spider-Man costume, only as Peter Parker. That was agreed upon, I know.”