The Final Word From Joe Allen: Spider-Man Is Not a Flop

While serving Broadway greats for nearly five decades, legendary restaurant and theater hub Joe Allen has served just as many not-so-greats — and has paid tribute to them with its famous (or infamous) "flop wall."

The restaurant's "flop wall" is an online gallery of images culled from its extensive Broadway poster collection, featuring some of the biggest stinkers in the history of the Great White Way. The soon-to-close headline-making musical Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark has been at the center of a controversy surrounding its potential placement in this archive of Broadway disasters. Joe Allen, however, has decided to grant the beaten and bruised production one last pardon before it vacates the Foxwoods Theatre on January 4. The restaurant issued the following statement in its defense:

"A lot of people have been asking if we are going to put Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark on the flop wall, so let me say, once and for all: absolutely not. Any show that plays for three years on Broadway, providing steady employment to members of the theater community and pumping money into the local economy, is no failure in my book."

Broadway has spoken.

To read TheaterMania's Final Bow interview with original Spider-Man cast members Isabel Keating and Michael Mulheren, click here.