Fired Spider-Man Director's Copyright Suit Has Producers Climbing the Walls

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeOh, what a litigious web we weave....

Director/writer Julie Taymor, who last March was relieved from the helm of the controversy-plagued $75 million Broadway play, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, has filed a $1 million copyright infringement suit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In her complaint, Julie Taymor & Loh, Inc. v. 8 Legged Productions, LLC et al (Case No. 1:2011-cv-08002), the plaintiff alleges the musical's producers, Glen Berger, Jeremiah Harris and Michael Cohl, breached a contract that allegedly gave her approval rights over changes to the play's book and owe her royalties for performances since April when the snake-bit (radioactive spider-bit?) production was revamped. She further alleges the adapted version of her stage directions and dialogue currently playing on Broadway constitute copyright infringement.

Other named defendants include Savior Productions, LLC, Goodbye Entertainment, LLC, and Hello Entertainment, LLC.  Judge Richard J. Holwell is presiding over the case.

The defendants have yet to respond to the complaint, which was filed November 8, but already, "TUOL"'s intellectual property-sense is tingling.