Weekly Ticket Sales Drop Under $1 Million for Broadway’s ‘Spider-Man’

For the first time since performances began in November 2010, the Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” took in less than $1 million for a standard eight-performance playing week, with last week’s gross totaling $966,952. While ticket sales have been softening since last fall for the $75 million musical, the most expensive in Broadway history, a spokesman on Monday linked last week’s total to “fallout” from a well-publicized foot injury suffered by the cast member Daniel Curry during the Aug. 15 performance.

The record-low $966,952 gross is notable because, over the last two years, the “Spider-Man” producers have explicitly pointed to their seven-figure grosses as a sign of audience validation for a musical that critics widely panned The producers have also been optimistic about earning back the show’s $75 million capitalization, but that feat would require weekly box office grosses in the $1.5 million range for several years. Last week’s gross was below the show’s weekly running costs, which are in the low seven figures, and far below the $2.94 million that the show grossed for nine performances during the New Year’s holiday week in the 2011-12 season. That week set a record for the highest gross ever on Broadway

Asked about ticket sales, the production’s spokesman, Rick Miramontez, said in a statement: “When a show like ‘Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark’ suffers a very public trauma, as it did the previous week, we expect there to be some fallout at the box office. To be honest, we are less concerned with ticket sales at the moment and more concerned with the recovery of Daniel Curry, but ‘Spider-Man’ remains one of the highest grossing shows on Broadway, and we expect this dip to be little more than a temporary reaction to the media coverage.”

Mr. Miramontez declined to discuss Mr. Curry’s recovery, citing the actor’s privacy. But another executive on the production team said that Mr. Curry was still at Bellevue Hospital, where he was taken the night of the accident, and had recently had a third foot surgery. “The mobility of the foot is still in question,” said the executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the show’s producers had not authorized release of Mr. Curry’s health information.

“Spider-Man” remains a fan favorite. No Broadway musical has endured so many bad reviews and so much negative publicity â€" over the firing of its original director, Julie Taymor, and over cast injuries in its early months â€" yet continued to run for nearly three years with mostly million-dollar weeks. Broadway musicals and plays had modest ticket sales over all last week, with a total gross of $20.6 million compared with $21.8 million during the previous week and $19.3 million for the comparable week in 2012. Attendance was down slightly compared to the previous week, but it was a bit better than the comparable week last year.