Drunk Bono? Spiderman Producer Fraud? Spiderman Lawsuit Airs Dirty Laundry

Lawyers for former “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” director Julia Taymor have filed papers in federal court responding to a countersuit by the show’s current producers. The new papers allege that producers were “secretly conspiring to oust Taymor and use and change her work without pay,” according to the Los Angeles Times.

The lawyers claim the conspiracy was developed by co-writer Glen Berger and set designer George Tyspin, and that the two then reached out to producers Michael Cohl and Jeremiah Harris, along with U2 members Bono and the Edge, who wrote the score for the production. One email claims that Bono appeared at a production meeting too drunk to contribute useful ideas.

The move is the latest in an ongoing legal battle, the origins of which came when Taymor was fired from the production last March. Taymor filed the first lawsuit in November of last year, claiming that she was an integral part of the team that created the production, and therefore deserved a portion of the successful show’s profits.

A countersuit was filed by the show’s producers this January, claiming that Taymor failed to complete her contract obligations. That suit claims the current version of the show is significantly different from Taymor’s original.

The newly filed papers claim that producers and other members of the creative team created “Plan X” to make changes to the musical without Taymor’s knowledge. The papers claim that producers “never offered Taymor a chance to implement Plan X and never offered her a shutdown to make other changes” to the show.

The emails concerning Bono have already caused a particular stir. According to the New York Times, an email by Berger alleges that during a late night meeting with Taymor and Cohl, Bono “showed up in our room with Christy Turlington and a couple other supermodels, and he had already had a few beers, rendering him useless.”