'Spidey' versus. Taymor, round two

TaymorProducers of Broadway tuner "Spider-Guy: Turn Off the Dark" fired back at director Julie Taymor getting a legitimate defense and countersuit filed responding for the suit Taymor introduced against them a year ago.Submitted in district court for your Southern District of NY, the "Spider-Guy" producers' counterclaims allege that Taymor is not really the co-author in the original book as she's presently credited, and characterize her legal push for royalty obligations so that they can learn within the work of others. The suit also accuses her of breach of seek her alleged refusal and failure to produce changes for the script as requested by producers together with other collaborators."The show can be a success despite Taymor, not because of her," in line with the suit.The completely new suit reps the newest volley inside the fallout within the $75 million musical's tortured path to opening evening, encompassing obstacles including funding failures, production delays and artist injuries that changed into worldwide news. In March 2011, after greater than three several days of preview perfs, Taymor left the expansion while director Philip William McKinley and book author Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa were introduced straight into re-tool the show.Many of the producers' Jan. 17 filing reps a line-by-line refutation in the claims Taymor's camping created inside a November. 8 filing alleging the director was not paid out proper author royalties. The producers respond by stating that for your "old book" in the musical -- rather than the "new book" composed by Aguirre-Sacasa and Glen Berger, incorporated carrying out a production hiatus in the year -- the particular writing work was shouldered by co-author Berger.Producers also reason why Taymor's copyright claims on story elements don't hold, since almost all people elements are attracted from pre-existing sources like the "Spider-Guy" comicbooks and movies. They in addition softball softball bat back at Taymor's legal try to nix non-Broadway incarnations of "Spider-Guy," fighting she's no contractual say inside the matter.Responding for the countersuit, Taymor's lawyers reponded, "The defendants' counterclaims against Ms. Taymor are groundless, whilst not surprising given their previous control over her. In their suit, Ms. Taymor is constantly on the intensely seek enforcement of her creative rights and may respond to the defendants' counter-claims, additionally for their crazy mischaracterizations and attempts to besmirch her status."The Jan. 17 filing reads as being a producers'-eye consider the turmoil that freely engulfed "Spider-Guy" throughout its preview period. The counterclaims fresh fresh paint Taymor just like a persistent director who stopped talking with collaborators and ongoing to become unresponsive in conferences every time the producers and collaborators asked for her to alter the expansion from her dark, arty vision in the "Spider-Guy" story.Once the show opened up up in June, the "Spider-Guy" team developed a public show of seeming reconciliation, with Taymor turning up alongside other creatives within the tuner's opening evening. While using filing of Taymor's author's rights suit in November, however, that facade crumbled.Meanwhile, producers also filed an anti-trust suit against Taymor as well as the legit helmers' union, happens Company company directors and Choreographers Society, responding with a separate suit filed a year ago over pointing royalties. SDC professional director Laura Penn mentioned she was without understanding in the suit. Contact Gordon Cox at gordon.cox@variety.com