Alan Cumming out of Spider-Man musical due to beefed up 'Good Wife' role

Image Credit: Janet Mayer/PR PhotosBroadway veteran and all-around lovable character actor Alan Cumming has decided to pull out of director Julie Taymor’s in-the-works musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. The Scottish actor, who was to play the Green Goblin, decided over the weekend after negotiations that he would not be able to juggle the rigors of a Broadway show and his beefed-up presence on the CBS series, The Good Wife. “He’s disappointed,” said Cumming’s rep. “He’s been attached to Spider-Man for a year and he was hopeful that it would make it to the stage and he’d be a part of it.” Alas, when Cumming was made a series regular on Julianna Margulies’ hit CBS show last month, he was forced to give up on Spidey, a big-budget and eagerly awaited musical for which U2 wrote the music and lyrics. The show, which was supposed to open in February, was delayed due to financing troubles, is officially slated to open later this year. The news follows another recent high-profile departure from the cast, after Evan Rachel Wood dropped out last month, also citing scheduling conflicts. (She was to play Mary Jane Watson on stage.) While Cumming will not get the chance to work with Spidey’s director Julie Taymor on this project, he will be starring in her feature film version of The Tempest, which should hit movie theaters by the end of 2010.