THE BALLOON MAN

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Marvel Universe Live: A First Look at the Traveling Superhero Circus

from: mashable.com

By Josh Dickey

April 21, 2014

You'll probably never see a comic book-style meet-up of Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Avengers on the big screen, but we’ll do you one better: on a live stage near you, starting this summer.

Beginning in July, Feld Entertainment, the live-show wizards behind the Ringling Bros. and Barnum Bailey Circus and Disney On Ice, are bringing their biggest traveling production yet to cities across North America with Marvel Universe LIVE!. And Mashable has an exclusive first look at some video from the upcoming production.

Though development and engineering for the show has been taking place over the course of more than a year, cast rehearsals and training just got underway in earnest about a week ago at Feld Entertainment in Ellenton, Fla.

“We’re just starting our workshop, period,” director Shanda Sawyer told Mashable. “We did about six months of casting, and we’ve got acrobats, gymnasts, aerialists, motorcycle stunt people, marital artists, Parkour experts — and we really looked for people with the highest degree of skill.”

Feld worked with Marvel brass, including Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada, who can be see in the video above, to develop an original story that will play out over roughly 90 minutes in large arenas around North America for the next three years. After that, the show goes global.