'Spider-Man' blasts Hollywood Reporter for running early review

une 14, 2011 | 2:11 pm

"Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" officially opens Tuesday evening in New York, after nearly seven rocky months of previews. Normally, newspapers and other news outlets wait until after the curtain has risen to publish their reviews online. But the Hollywood Reporter has broken with protocol, running its negative review of the revised musical Tuesday morning.

In so doing, the trade publication has provoked a harsh rebuke from "Spider-Man" officials.

"For The Hollywood Reporter to break the embargo and run its review before opening night curtain goes up is the epitome of bad taste," said Rick Miramontez, the show's spokesman, in a statement.

"Everyone in this production has waited a very long time to get to this point, and it is incredibly disrespectful that certain members of the media won't wait a few more hours to post their reviews. We trust that no other outlets will stoop so low."

The review, written by former Variety critic David Rooney, calls the show a "significantly overhauled but still terminally clunky reworking of the troubled mega-musical." He goes on to say that the new creative team "has injected fanboy humor and self-conscious acknowledgments of the production's rocky gestation, [but] they have not located a heart in this bloated monster."

In February, news outlets across the country, including The Times, published reviews of "Spider-Man" while it was still in previews.

Since then, Julie Taymor has left the production and has been replaced by director Philip William McKinley and book writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa.

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-- David Ng

Photo: Reeve Carney, left, and Jennifer Damiano perform a song from "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" during the 65th annual Tony Awards Sunday. Credit: Jeff Christensen / AP

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