Julie Taymor Sues 'Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark' for Infringing Her Creative Input

Taylor Hill/Getty ImagesJulie Taymor Julie Taymor has filed a blockbuster lawsuit in NY that claims that Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark, the most expensive production in Broadway history, has violated her rights by continuing to use her work without compensation.our editor recommends'Spider-Man' Musical's Ex-Director Julie Taymor Speaks Out'Spider-Man' Owes Julie Taymor $300,000, Union SaysBroadway's 'Spider-Man' Rep Denies Report of Stalemate with Departing Director Julie Taymor'Spider-Man' Director Julie Taymor Out; New Creative Team Hired Taymor, an Academy Award-nominated director, was let go from the musical earlier this year, before it officially opened, due to artistic differences. The show suffered from poor early reviews and high-profile injuries to cast, but it has been a success at the box office, showing to near-capacity crowds since it first premiered in November 2010. After Taymor was let go, she filed an arbitration claim against producers, saying she was owed more than $500,000 in royalties. An arbitration hearing was held earlier this month, and the outcome isn't known. But Taymor is taking a new tack in an effort to claim profits from the show, alleging in her complaint that producers have continued to make use of her creative contributions. Producer Michael Cohl's 8 Legged Productions is the defendant. "Ms. Taymor regrets that the producers' actions have left her no choice but to resort to legal recourse to protect her rights," says her attorney, Charles Spada atLankler Siffert & Wohl. Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is a rock musical that credits its music and lyrics to U2's Bono and The Edge and its book to Taymor, Glen Berger and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. It not only set the record for Broadway's most expensive production ever at more than a reported $75 million, but also the longest preview period (182 performances before it officially opened). Producers needed the long gestation period to figure out the story as well as complicated flying stunts that left several cast members injured. In March 2011, Taymor left the production. Taymor's legal move isn't unprecedented. In the mid-1990s, director Joe Mantello managed to get the U.S. Copyright Office to accept his application of an annotated script of "Love! Valour! Compassion!" a Terrence McNally play. When a Florida-based regional production company attempted to put on a production without acknowledging and paying Mantello, he successfully sued. Other directors haven't found as much luck. For instance, in 2004, producers of an off-Broadway production of "Tam Lin" were sued by a fired director, Edward Einhorn, who argued that his work in developing the play entitled him to part of the copyright. A judge released a preliminary ruling that raised doubts about this claim, saying he saw no evidence of a copyrightable annotated script at the time of Einhorn's firing. Before a judge made a definitive judgement, the two sides settled for $800. The Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers have long supported the contention that directors and possibly choreographers deserve a piece of copyright and the ability to participate in the income generated by productions. The issue hasn't been settled, but the forthcoming Taymor case could be an opportunity for the theatrical community to discuss authorship for copyright purposes. E-mail: eriqgardner@yahoo.com Twitter: @eriqgardner Julie Taymor Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark

Veterans back in action

Alexander PayneBruce RobinsonLynne Ramsay Clint Eastwood births one film per year. Woody Allen continues to pop them out like the Duggar family. And after a three-year break, Steven Spielberg will deliver not one, but two directing vehicles in late December.Though some awards-season regulars are maintaining a prolific pace, other decorated helmers -- Terrence Malick ("The Tree of Life"), Alexander Payne ("The Descendants"), Lynne Ramsay ("We Need to Talk About Kevin"), Bennett Miller ("Moneyball") and Bruce Robinson ("The Rum Diary") among them -- stand out for the well-spaced entries in their filmographies. Whether or not absence makes the heart grow fonder depends on the talent.When Malick returned to action 20 years after "Days of Heaven" (1978) with "The Thin Red Line," his reputation had gone beyond cult to legend, doubtlessly due in no small measure to a reclusiveness that would make J.D. Salinger proud. The result was an Academy that welcomed Malick into the fold, rewarding the enigmatic artist with his first two Oscar nominations, for writing and directing.Though the six-year gap between Malick's "The Tree of Life," which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes, and his previous directing effort, "The New World," marks a comparatively rapid follow-up, rumors have been swirling about an origins-of-the-universe project connected to Malick dating back to the '80s.For Payne, Ramsay and Miller, the gap had much to do with aborted projects. Nine years elapsed between Ramsay's previous directing effort, "Morvern Caller," and "Kevin," with several of those years spent developing Alice Sebold's novel "The Lovely Bones." The Scottish writer-director, who originally held the option on Sebold's dark drama narrated by a murdered girl, began penning the script before the author's manuscript was finished."I was on my own path with the script when the book became an international best-seller," recalls Ramsay. "I then felt under pressure to write a very literal translation, and I didn't think it would work as a film, so I left the project."Peter Jackson famously took on "Lovely Bones," which became an expensive CG-heavy adaptation, while Ramsay segued to "Kevin," a project that took four years and was nearly derailed when the film's budget was slashed from $12 million to $6.5 million due to the global recession."It was very complicated to make on less money as it spanned over 17 years with four versions of Kevin from a baby to a teenager," notes Ramsay of the film, which centers on the mother of a teenage boy who embarks on a high-school killing spree. "I had to cut it to the bone and be inventive and economical to make it work. The film was prepped within an inch of its life as we had only 30 days to shoot with costume changes and limited hours with children." Variety called the film "exquisitely realized" at Cannes.Similarly, Miller got caught up on a project that was eventually shelved. After his successful collaboration with Philip Seymour Hoffman on "Capote" in 2005 the two began developing "Foxcatcher," a film about troubled scion John du Pont."I could not imagine that it wasn't going to happen," says Miller, who spent several years on the pic before conceding defeat. "It was really a struggle to find something worthy but that could also get off the ground."The subsequent project, "Moneyball," touts the highest score on Metacritic.com, 87, of all current releases.Payne spent much of the six years since the release of "Sideways" -- which received five Oscar nominations including a screenwriting statuette for Payne -- working with his Ad Hominem partners Jim Taylor and Jim Burke on the epic "Downsizing," which revolves around a down-on-his-luck man who decides he can have a better life if he undergoes a process to shrink himself."Given that the production of 'Downsizing' is such a beast, I coaxed (Payne) into doing 'Descendants,' " says the film's producer Burke, who optioned the manuscript for "Descendants" five years ago. "I probably asked him 40 times. But he needed to find his own personal connection to the material."Once Payne did, the film was cast and began shooting within months. At Telluride, where it premiered in September, the film's right-to-die subject matter was described by Variety as handled "with such sensitivity that it's hardly noticeable you're being enlightened while entertained."Though "Tree of Life" reached the bigscreen faster than a typical Malick outing, the director has been collecting images for the film for more than a decade. The one-time MIT professor consulted with world-renowned academics to grasp the science behind the formation of the universe, which the film depicts."All along, Malick was hunting for the Tao, that completely unanticipated phenomena, those magical unexpected moments that no one could possibly design," says special effects maven Douglas Trumbull ("2001: A Space Odyssey"), with whom Malick consulted.Meanwhile, Robinson's 20-year hiatus is due to the fact that he retired from directing. Robinson was coaxed by Johnny Depp -- a huge fan of Robinson's sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll saga "Withnail and I" and his wildly satiric "How to Get Ahead in Advertising" -- to return to write and helm "Rum Diary," based on Hunter S. Thompson's novel."These two films destroyed me," Depp told the L.A. Times recently, adding he felt Robinson's penchant for "huge humor and absurdity" was the perfect match for a work that foreshadows Thompson's ground-breaking gonzo style.Whatever the reason for a film's lengthy gestation, as Orson Welles once suggested while shilling for Paul Masson, "no wine before its time." And this is how Miller views "Foxcatcher," which he hopes to resurrect: "I never think of the time spent developing a film as time lost."EYE ON THE OSCARS: BEST PICTURE PREVIEWReading the voters' minds | Rewriting history to suit the demands of drama | Veterans back in action | Beyond the boardsAWARDS SEASON CALENDARNovember | December | January | February Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

How Michael Fassbender Ready for His 'Shame' Sex Moments

"Michael Bay posseses an incredible eye to make use of it and adrenaline-moving movies, so that it made an appearance natural to put him associated with creating this trailer," states 'Need for Speed: The Run' star Christina Hendricks in this new behind-the-moments video. "It seems like the next large blockbuster movie in the summer season." On November. 15, 'Need for Speed: The Run' might be the eighteenth entry inside the 'Need for Speed' gaming series, although the only person who may claim some of it have been Bay-ified. Mixing this mixture-country racing part of 'The Cannonball Run' while using 'Fast as well as the Furious' franchise, 'Need for Speed: The Run' features break-neck video-game action and what editor Doug Brandt calls "hyper-realism." Consequently, it's a natural fit for Bay, who's helmed such massive action spectacles as 'The Rock,' 'Bad Boys,' 'Armageddon' as well as the 'Transformers' series. "What's interesting about games is always that they've taken the appear to this kind of amount, they've upped their music, they've upped the acting quotient on these games," states Bay, mentioning to Hendricks ('Drive,' 'Mad Men'). "The lighting is enhancing. I used to be very impressed using this 'Need for Speed' crew. There's a really filmic use their stuff." Don't take Bay's word with this watch the behind-the-moments video below, and search for the whole trailer at America online. Follow Moviefone on Twitter Like Moviefone on Facebook RELATED

Bones Season 7: Can a Baby Break the Moonlighting Curse?

David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel Ever since the demise of Moonlighting, many television writers have had one great fear: Once their show's two romantic leads sleep together, the show will lose its tension and become lifeless.Fall Preview: Get scoop on your favorite returning showsBut Bones creator Hart Hanson - who faces that challenge as the show's seventh season premieres with Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) pregnant with the child of her former will-they-won't-they partner Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) - has found the opposite to be true."I feel like it re-energized the series," Hanson tells TVGuide.com. "I think it breathes new life into the franchise - into the story engine of Booth and Brennan. The reason we put them together is that it's just been so long. It had to happen. We just could not put it off anymore."The trick, Hanson says, is finding drama to replace the sexual tension. Even though he and executive producer Stephen Nathan had planned for a Booth-Brennan hookup from the beginning of Season 6, it wasn't until Deschanel revealed she was pregnant that the duo landed on their new dynamic.Bones Season 7 scoop: Booth and Brennan's family matters and a new villain, squintern "We knew we did not want them getting together and breaking up. We didn't want misunderstandings," Hanson says. "So, they're contending with a brand new relationship. 'How together are they?' is a question that needs answering. And how are they going to deal with having a child together? As we started banging out this season, it just gave us so many places to go with story."Thursday's premiere finds the couple tired of splitting time between their respective homes and considering a more permanent cohabitation solution. Other bumps in the road could include the couple's differing views on religion, not to mention that Brennan learns the sex of the baby without even including Booth.But Hanson says the drama won't be so trivial all season. "There are deeper places to go," he says. "What happens to the relationship between two people who share a child and love each other deeply? That's our journey this year. Where do they go next? And of course, the biggest question is, do they get married?"Bones scoop: Meet the Jeffersonian's new squintern!Booth's reaction to (or fear of) that question may be somewhat surprising, given his history. "I think it really is a peek into how Booth has progressed," Hanson says. "[He's] the man who keeps asking people to marry him, and they never say 'yes.' He's maybe learned to lay back a little bit."Although Hanson says "motherhood opens up an emotional side that is not easy for [Brennan] to deny," Booth will also find himself in a very reflective state as he prepares to become a father again. "Booth has had a combative and difficult relationship with his father," Hanson says. "His father was abusive, and we have a story coming up with [Booth] and his grandfather, concerning his dad. And it's just... having a kid, changes everything in your life. Everything is from a different perspective."Not surprisingly, family will be a theme throughout the season. The show will explore the ups and downs of new parents Angela (Michaela Conlin) and Hodgins (TJ Thyne), as well as revisit the relationship between Cam (Tamara Taylor) and her teenage daughter. Plus, the Jeffersonian is adding a new squintern (Luke Kleintank) to its "family" after the death of Vincet Nigel-Murray (Ryan Cartwright) last season.Bones scoop: Meet Season 7's new baddie!But the show also remains focused on catching bad guys. This season will introduce a new tech-savvy villain (Andrew Leeds) who will stump both Brennan and Booth. "I think he is a great amalgamation of high-tech and analog," Hanson says. "This serial killer flummoxes them both by swapping back and forth, and they have to combine their talents. It would be too creepy to say that it's like, 'What if Booth and Brennan's baby grew up to be a horrible serial killer?' Butthematically they have to deal with two things this year that are a combination of the two of them. One's the baby, and the other is this big baddie."And will the couple stop to consider that chasing killers might not be in the best long-term interest of Baby Bones? "That's exactly one of the arenas that we have to deal with this year," Hanson says. "Can you still go running around, chasing dangerous people, and doing dangerous things when you have an infant depending upon you for a whole life? That is grist for the mill for the two of them.One of the great things about having this child is that it makes everything very immediate and very gut-oriented. It's gut versus brain. What do we do?"Bones premieres Thursday at 9/8c on Fox.

Crown Media Says Hallmark Movie Channel Contributes To Strong 3Q

The owner of The Hallmark Channel had a happy story of its own to tell in 3Q as ad sales improved, marketing expenses dropped — and it recorded a big gain from a deferred tax asset. With that $191.7M one-time tax jolt,Crown had net income of $203.3M, up from $5.9M this quarter last year, on revenues of $74M, up 18%. The company says that ad revenue was up 15% to $56M as it raised average per-viewer prices, while payments from pay TV distributors were up 29% to $18M. The Hallmark Movie Channel contributed $7.8M in ad sales, up 69.6%. Crown says it also benefited from improved ratings from shows in the Hallmark Channel’s daytime block, which includes The Martha Stewart Show, Martha Bakes, and Mad Hungry With Lucinda Scala Quinn. Crown didn’t spend as much on marketing this past quarter as it did a year ago when it launched The Martha Stewart Show. “We have experienced solid growth for our overall advertising sales revenues and are optimistic that the trend will continue,” says CEO Bill Abbott.

The Biz: Conan O'Brien Looks Back on His Big Year

Conan O'Brien This month will mark one year since Conan O'Brien moved his sofa, desk and bone-dry sidekick, Andy Richter, to TBS and launched Conan. He's back in NY this week to tape four shows at the Beacon Theater (Monday - Thursday, 11/10c, TBS). We celebrated his homecoming with a chat about the past, present and future of late night.TV Guide Magazine: Do you miss NY?Conan O'Brien: Oh, yeah. We just were back two weeks ago. I had a couple days off and I went back there with the crew, and we shot a bunch of things in and around the city, and it was just this blast of adrenaline, you know? It's like on ER, when they stick that needle into someone's heart to get it going again. It's a needle of adrenaline in your left ventricle. And the people were great. I mean, everywhere I went, people were leaning out of buses: "Conan!" You know, I think people were happy to see my weird orange head.TV Guide Magazine: Do you ever think about bringing the show back to NY full time?O'Brien: When I moved out to Los Angeles, and I took my wife and my kids here and we made this big commitment to this, it felt like my kids actually put down roots. They like it here. I spent 21 years walking, mining, shooting every single possible remote I could think of, in and around NY City. And it's really fun to go back for a couple of days. But L.A. is like shaking up the Etch A Sketch and starting again. It's giving me a chance to maybe try and reinvent some things.TV Guide Magazine: When you were back in NY recently you appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. How emotional was it to return to the sixth floor at Rockefeller Center where you worked for more than 20 years?O'Brien: I walked away from that building and came out to L.A., and we all know what happened next. I hadn't been back there since. I was thinking to myself, 'This is going to be strange.' But it was really nice to do it. It just wasn't the amount of time that I spent there, it was the intensity of it. You know when I first saw it, I was a writer at Saturday Night Live. My writing partner, Greg Daniels, and I would sneak into David Letterman's studio. And I would sit at his desk and write SNL sketches. Now it's Dr. Oz's studio and it's a completely different audience... They're talking about hysterectomies.TV Guide Magazine: You've always talked about the legacy of late night television. But it feels like a very different environment since you left The Tonight Show. How do you size it up?O'Brien: Late night has become more democratic. When I grew up, there was one person, Johnny Carson. The first revolution was when Dave went to CBS, because there wasn't just one late night network show at 11:30. But I think what's accelerating it now is there are just so many ways people experience television. If you're obsessed with the idea of being the guy or woman who everyone gathers around at night and watches, there is no such thing. There are so many different niche shows for different types of audiences and people experience it all different times and ways. We have a younger audience, so they watch our show on DVR. I have an assistant who doesn't even own a television and she's a huge television fan. She watches on her computer. And I now have so many people that come up to me and say, "Oh, I love that thing you did." Some of them saw it at 11 o'clock on TBS. But there are so many people who saw it on the Huffington Post or on YouTube.TV Guide Magazine: Is there pressure to come up with bits that are going to run as clips on news shows or web sites? O'Brien: I have people on my staff come to me and say, "Oh, this will be good, because this could go viral." And I actually try and discourage it. I say our job is no different than it was in 1993. And it's no different than what Johnny's job was. You're there for an hour, and you're trying to be as entertaining as you can. The really great moments - you can't force them, they come.TV Guide Magazine: Comedy about the presidential campaign gets replayed a lot. But your show has younger viewers who tend not to watch a lot of news. Is it harder for you to do political humor? O'Brien: Sometimes I feel like a lot of this ground is being covered by other people. There are whole shows - Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher - that focus on it so much. We don't have as overtly a political show, and when we do stuff, we try and keep it sillier. So I don't go out of my way to try and think, "The editorial page in The Wall Street Journal is going to love this take on John Huntsman." TV Guide Magazine: Have the parameters on what you can do changed at TBS? It's hard to imagine a couple of years ago on NBC that you could have a basketball mascot dressed as Anthony Wiener's underwear bulge.O'Brien: That's a guy who's spent years training to be an actor. We said, "Congratulations. Now put on this underwear bulge outfit." You know, now that I'm on Turner, I'm allowed to swear. And you know what? I don't. I don't go out of my way to swear nearly as much as some other hosts.TV Guide Magazine: What are late-night viewers getting from you that really can't get anywhere else? O'Brien: I think there is a looseness that has evolved. I'm looser than I've ever been. You know, we built a nice little comedy lab room, and we have a very excited audience. Andy Richter and I can finish each other's sentences. The relationship I have with him is different from anything else on television. He never was a traditional sidekick. We've both been through the wars. We've both been through a lot. And so he will openly mock me in the monologue, if something isn't working. And we'll go at it. What you see when you tune in to our show is me, every night, figuring out what the hell it is. It's still evolving. It's still changing. I'm fascinated by the Internet side of my show, which is growing. It's going to sound like a joke, but it's possible that in 10 years the TV show will be a small unit that's attached to the giant octopus that is Team Coco (the show's Web site). It's a very strange thing that's happening.TV Guide Magazine: The passion among your fans is deep. But do you ever think about how to broaden it out and get more people to sample what you're doing? O'Brien: TBS is in the process of developing original programming and building up. They've been terrifically supportive. We always knew, "Okay, we're signing up with these guys for the long haul, and this is going to have to evolve." Also, I've always had a Field of Dreams philosophy: If you build it, they will come. If you keep putting out funny stuff, we have a culture now where it can get batted around and where people are working out in the gym and they show something funny on one of the news outlets.TV Guide Magazine: Do the TBS people tell you not to worry about conventional day-to-day ratings? O'Brien: Yeah. We always knew we're going to get the time and they're in the process of re-branding. They just added The Big Bang Theory to their primetime, which leads into us. And we're going to all work together and build this thing. That's the nice thing about being with these guys. They watch every single show. And they call me up, and they love the show. And they love what we're doing. We all have a clear vision of what it is we want to do here.TV Guide Magazine: Has anyone suggested producing a version of the show that could air in broadcast syndication or other outlets?O'Brien: There's been talk about us doing a best-of show. You know, they leave me out of those talks because I always just want to do live shows. I'm constantly just trying to get back to vaudeville. And they're like, "No, no, no. That's not what we want. Settle down, kid." I just want to put on makeup and go tap dance.TV Guide Magazine: What happens if Turner comes to you with a contract extension?O'Brien: I'd be fine with that. I love these guys. I have upcoming talks with Telemundo. We're going to have tapas, and we're going to talk about some stuff. That might be my only caveat with TBS.Subscribe to TV Guide Magazine now!

Siegfried

Jay Hunter Morris in "Siegfried" A Metropolitan Opera presentation from the opera in three operates by Richard Wagner. Directed by Robert Lepage. Completed by Fabio Luisi. Connect Director, Neilson Vignola.Siegfried - Jay Hunter Morris Wanderer - Bryn Terfel Mime - Gerhard Siegel Alberich - Eric Owens Erda - Patricia Bardon Fafner - Hendes-Peter Konig Forest Bird - Mojca Erdmann Brunnhilde - Deborah VoigtHow difficult can it be to stage Richard Wagner's "Siegfried"? Or maybe more precisely, how difficult can it be to discover a tenor to sing the punishing title role? The Met Opera introduced believe it or not than two tenors, who then withdrew, before it emerged with somebody who really could sing Siegfried for Robert Lepage's new production. If this describes scraping the feet from the barrel, your Met should do it more often: Newcomer Jay Hunter Morris is magnificent, and he's mostly ornamented by equally wonderful entertainers familiar to auds who've seen Lepage's stagings in the previous two operas in Wagner's tetralogy. After "Das Rheingold" and "Die Walkure," Lepage's staging from the chapter of "The Ring" is less revelatory. People humongous piano strategies of Carl Fillion's unit set tend to be stationery, much less abstract, and so are used mainly just like a wall to project images. Functions one and a pair of begin with numerous hyper-realistic snakes and bugs that slither about, however, if the secrets turn, they morph in to a beautiful forest right for the favourite fairytale. When the libretto demands a bear, a mountain stream together with a bird, we have precisely that. But all this literalism ultimately becomes kitsch. After grossing us by helping cover their people snakes and bugs, the forest's ultimate bad secret's a cutesy dragon directly from Universal CityWalk. Lepage and Fillion are saved to firmer ground while using more abstract earthscape and firestorm of act three. Possibly kinks will probably be worked out afterwards perfs, however, if people piano secrets change to produce new formations, they often times appear like they weigh every pound of the numerous tons. There's been more expansive bloodstream pressure dimensions of "Siegfried," but Fabio Luisi's carrying out has real drive that doesn't lag for just about any minute in the opera's five-plus several hours. Opening-evening perf showed up 20 minutes beneath the thought running time. Morris, getting a apparent and focused voice, sings with great precision, and also the lament for your mother he never understood is actually poignant. A encouraging Siegfried? This type of wonderful contradiction. Bryn Terfel continues use a commanding yet deeply conflicted Wotan/Wanderer. And Gerhard Siegel's Mime is fantastically sang. OK, he's playing a hate-filled hunchback, but within the twisted confines in the role, that is impassioned singing. The level of smoothness Brunnhilde really can get beautiful music to sing. Sadly, Deborah Voigt isn't any more around the needs in the role. The Met's "Live in HD" transmission of "Siegfried" plays in movies theaters November. 5.Sets, Carl Fillion costumes, Francois St-Aubin lighting, Etienne Boucher videos, Pedro Pires. Opened up up, examined March. 27, 2011. Running time: 5 Several hours, 10 MIN. Contact Robert Hofler at bob.hofler@variety.com