Bono wasn’t a fan of ‘SNL’ jokes about failed Spider-Man musical
With great jokes comes great responsibility, or at least that’s the lesson Bono tried to teach Seth Meyers back in the early 2010s. On Monday, the “Late Night” host and New England native launched his new “Saturday Night Live” rewatch podcast with Lonely Island comedy trio Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer. The former “SNL” stars kicked off the first episode by recounting the show’s sketches inspired by the failed 2011 Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”
The production, which featured music and lyrics by U2’s Bono and The Edge, was a notorious disaster during its short-lived run. “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” was mired by on-set injuries, story revisions, and delays, culminating with the show closing on January 2014 after losing $60 million, setting a new Broadway record.
“This might already be lost to history, but in the early runs of ‘SpiderMan: Turn Off the Dark,’ a lot of Spider-Men were falling from the rafters and hurting themselves super bad,” Meyers recounted on the podcast. “Living in New York City at the time, that was pretty much all that the New
York Post was writing about.”
The former “SNL” head writer admitted that he “wrote way too many sketches” about the Broadway show at the time, including a 2011 bit about a lawyer, played by Fred Armisen, who catered only to people injured by the musical.
“I was completely enamored with the story that people were hurting themselves, especially just people dressed like Spider-Man hurting themselves in Broadway theaters,” Meyers said.
While Meyers and the “SNL” team found the situation funny, there was one person who wasn’t a fan of their Spider-Man bits: Bono. According to the late-night host, the U2 singer sent Meyers an email, in hopes that the comic would cut the jokes after seeing the show.
“I got an email from Bono — this is not a joke — inviting me to the premiere of ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,’” Meyers said. “He said something along the lines of ‘You’ve had your fun. You’ve told your jokes. Now come see the real thing.’”
Meyers revealed that he ended up going to the opening night performance and, luckily, not a single Spider-Man fell from the ceiling.
“Everybody walked out as they entered,” Meyers said. “I will say, half of the audience — and I’m not going to say which half I was in — I think was a little bummed out that nobody fell from the rafters.”