A Web and a Prayer
Profile of Julie Taymor and the $70 million “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.” Much has transpired in the eight and a half years since Tony Adams, the original producer, having struck what some insiders say was a crippling deal with Marvel for the stage rights for Spider-Man, approached Bono and the Edge, of the rock group U2, about writing the songs. They in turn approached Taymor, then finishing her movie “Frida,” to direct. (“We were only going to do it if we could do it with Julie,” says Bono, who had loved Taymor’s “The Lion King.”) After reading through the original comic books and realizing that they offered “a mythology as authentic as any other,” she agreed. “Every age has its own myth that becomes more potent than others,” she says. “And this is ours.”