Evan Rachel Wood’s agents are reportedly desperate to win back a number of film roles the actress turned down to work on stalled Broadway musical Spider-man as rumours continue to swirl about the troubled stage show.

The Wrestler star was due to tread the boards in the new production early next year, but work on the play has been suspended as producers at Hello Entertainment battle financial problems.

Claims the Spider-Man spectacular, which will feature music written by U2 stars Bono and The Edge, has been scrapped altogether were blasted by the show’s bosses on Wednesday amid rumours the cast and crew had been released from their contracts.

A spokesperson for the production told WENN: “Hello Entertainment is aware of the speculation about the future of Spider-Man on Broadway and is re-confirming that the plan is to resume production shortly and preview on February 25th, 2010 at the Hilton Theatre when cash flow issues have been resolved.”

But according to the New York Post, Wood will not be part of the line-up when the musical resumes production.

The newspaper alleges the actress snubbed several film roles to commit to the New York show, but now Spider-Man appears to be in trouble, she wants to claim those projects back.

An insider tells the publication, “As far as they’re concerned, it’s over. She’s available for other work.”

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I’ll admit, I never understood why anyone thought Spider-Man would make a good musical — even with music by Bono and The Edge. But Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark seemed inevitable, and once we got word that Evan Rachel Wood and Alan Cumming were joining the cast, the big-budgeted show seemed to be chugging along nicely towards it’s 2010 release date. But all is not well in the world of Spidey, and Michael Riedel at the New York Post is reporting that the show is in serious trouble. According to Riedel, the set designers have been put on hiatus, actors might be released from their contracts, and staff is scrambling to cash their checks before the money runs out.

The production is still a long way from being finished, and according to sources, “A lot of it seems to exist only in Julie’s [Taymor] head,” But as far as Taymor and company are concerned, the show is on track for previews in February, 2010. According to the official website, tickets will be going on sale in October, but sources claim that agents are already trying to return the tickets that have been sold for advance previews.

Riedel’s sources claimed that it was the show’s price tag that was the final straw for the troubled production. The show was budgeted at $45 million (with a weekly running cost of almost $900,000) but it looks like even with a sold-out house every night the production can’t make a profit. But, the bottom line wasn’t the only hurdle for the web-slinging musical, and according to Riedel, there is plenty of blame to go around for the show’s producers, “Sony, Marvel Comics and David Garfinkle, a Chicago lawyer who, sources say, had almost no Broadway experience.”

But if you were looking forward to a singing and dancing Peter Parker, all is not lost — at least not yet anyway. Remember, nothing is official, so stay tuned to Cinematical for any updates that come our way.

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Evan Rachel Wood had harsh words for Bono and The Edge when she met them – she told the U2 stars to make their music less depressing.

The Wrestler actress is set to take on the role of Mary Jane Watson in the new musical SpiderMan: Turn Off the Dark on Broadway, which will debut in February.

U2 frontman Bono and guitarist The Edge are writing new music for the musical – and Wood found herself giving them tips at a recent meet-up.

She tells Britain’s The Times, “I was like, ‘Bono, I know you want to save the world and everything, but in this song you’re talking about poverty and world hunger and it’s Broadway. Can we lighten this up a bit, can I just not sing this?’

“He was like, ‘You’re right, I know, we have to try, we have to try’.”

Source: WENN

The 1930s quasi-gangland setting for Theatre In The Park’s presentation of Romeo & Juliet allows for certain production latitudes. For example, it isn’t often that the playbill for Williams Shakespeare’s most famous play contains the following disclaimer: “This production contains cigarette smoke.” But, smoke it does, as Evan Rachel Wood graced the stage alongside her father, brother and a terrific cast during the Saturday afternoon, May 16, performance I attended, the second of six sold-out shows that conclude on Tuesday, May 19.

But, Evan Rachel Wood is the production’s star from the moment she first appears as Juliet. Her’s is not the most polished or showy performance. But, she exudes star quality, her radiant red hair, alabaster skin and lithe physique commanding the stage, whether she gleefully prances about in the throes of love, laments the loss of Romeo, or, yes, smokes. The unquestioned show-stopper, however, comes when Wood’s Juliet croons a rendition of the 1930′s standard “My Funny Valentine,” which held an enchanted audience on the edge of its collective seat.

The mercurial history of the Wood family—including the strained relationship between Evan and her locally renowned father, Ira David Wood III—is well-documented. This onstage reunion is partly an effort to continue their fence-mending. So, more than a few knowing chuckles were heard in the audience when Wood III’s Lord Capulet celebrates daughter Juliet’s willingness to finally obey her father and marry Paris by exclaiming, “My heart is wondrous light, since this same wayward girl is so reclaimed.”

Of course, remember that Juliet was pulling the wool over her father’s eyes.

Source: Indy Week

Seems like old times as Evan Rachel Wood, her father and brother reunite for a local play

In the 12 years since Evan Rachel Wood left Raleigh, the city has changed a great deal. But certain quadrants of it remain blissfully, comfortingly familiar. Like Theatre in the Park, where Wood has returned to perform with her father and brother in a production of “Romeo and Juliet.”

“Coming back in the spring, getting back into the same routine, seeing a lot of the same people — it really feels like nothing has changed,” she says, seated in an easy chair backstage. “I thought it might be weird, but I just fell right back into everything like no time had gone by at all. Living here was always warm and cozy and safe and fun. My brother and I grew up in the prop room. That was the playroom where we’d hang out.”

Of course, Wood has changed over the past dozen years even if her old hangouts haven’t. Since her breakout role as a restless adolescent in 2003′s “Thirteen,” Wood has become one of Hollywood’s leading young actresses. She recently played Mickey Rourke’s estranged daughter in “The Wrestler” and muse-to-a-generation Lucy in the 2007 Beatles musical “Across the Universe.”

Wood’s next big-screen role will be opposite Larry David in the Woody Allen comedy “Whatever Works,” opening this summer. She’s also set to play Mary Jane in the Broadway musical version of “Spiderman” this year — “hanging off buildings as the damsel in distress,” she cracks.

First, though, is a weekend run of “Romeo and Juliet,” which sold out long ago. It’s a fundraiser for Theatre in the Park to finance a trip to take “A Christmas Carol” to France in November. Everyone in the production (including Wood, who typically commands enormous salaries for her movie roles) is working for free.

It’s quite the family affair. Wood stars as Juliet while her real-life father, Ira David Wood III, plays Juliet’s father, Lord Capulet. And her brother, Ira David Wood IV, directs and plays the supporting part of Mercutio.

“The first production I ever saw of it was right here, in 1995,” Wood, 21, says. “A lot of the same cast is still here now, which makes it special to come back to. My brother and I had always dreamed of doing it together. Finally, at Thanksgiving I said, ‘We should go ahead and do this. We’re all old enough. And if we wait too long, I’m going to be too old.’

“I always wanted to play Juliet in the way I’ve read her, but never seen her played. Usually she’s very innocent and sweet and cries all the way through the second act. But she’s really rebellious — she’s sneaking around, getting married on the sly; she kills herself. She’s tough, too.”

Wood took her first steps toward acting at Theatre in the Park, where her father has held forth as Scrooge in “A Christmas Carol” for more than 30 years. She was appearing onstage in productions as a toddler and had her first speaking role as the Ghost of Christmas Past in “A Christmas Carol” — a star turn in which she brought down the house by scolding, “Ebenezer Scrooge, you sound just like my dad!”

Even as a child, her father says, Evan emitted star power.

“I remember once when Evvy was young, I walked in while they were setting up lights,” says the elder Wood, “and she was sitting on the bench onstage totally entertaining herself with this monologue. She was in the zone. I could tell she was born with the magic.”

“I do not remember that,” Evan interjects with a laugh. “But I did do that a lot.”

“Yes, I’d see you doing the same thing with dolls in your room,” Ira tells her. “Before you could even read, you’d be holding a book upside down and talking to the dolls in a language you were making up. And I imagined forward a few years to the dolls being people in a theater, watching you on a stage or a screen.”

Source: News & Observer