Comic-book nerds, theater kids, Disney adults: Assemble! Disney is creating a whole new theme-park attraction just to roast Julie Taymor and Bono. Today, the company announced that it’s adapting the fake Captain America musical from Hawkeye into a real, live stage production that will debut at Disney’s California Adventure Park in Anaheim this summer. In the Disney+ and Marvel series, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye watches a cheesy Broadway production called Rogers: The Musical that turns Cap’s life into a misguided musical extravaganza full of triple threats belting and grand jété-ing their way through famous moments from The Avengers’s climactic Battle of New York.
The artwork outside of the theater is a riff on Hamilton, because in the MCU, the events of The Avengers are U.S. history. But what we see of the show, with its electric guitar wailing and cardboard comic-book sets, is clearly referencing Julie Taymor’s failed blockbuster superhero musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. It’s as if Disney is thumbing its nose and saying, “Nice try, but leave any and all Marvel adaptations (and family-friendly musical numbers) to us.â€
In Hawkeye, Marc Shaiman and his co-lyricist, Scott Wittman, riff on Bono and the Edge’s Spidey music with the track “Save the City,†and they’re possibly winking at their own musical-within-a-show when the Hulk sings, “Smash! Smash! Smaaaaaash!†Shaiman and Wittman will most likely have to compose more original songs to pan out the “short, one-act musical,†but based on the 1940s styling of the announcement video, complete with Peggy Carter, the odds are good that the show will include Alan Menken’s fake USO number “Star-Spangled Man†from Captain America: The First Avenger.
The California Adventure Park production will debut for a limited run this summer, but if you’re desperately curious about what a live Rogers: The Musical looks like, Disney tested out the concept in December at its D23 Expo.
If this MCU live-musical concept is a success, we look forward to the Disneyland stage production of Groot! in 2024.