Las Vegas Weekly

September 19, 2008 · 1:48 PM

Mandalay Bay cooling on American Idol, SNL productions

By Robin Leach

It doesn’t appear that the proposed live-stage versions of an American Idol or “Saturday Night Live shows will hit the Vegas strip as early as thought. Producers of both had been hoping to land a berth for them at either the Paris Las Vegas theater or Mandalay Bay’s theater when the Mamma Mia musical exits and goes out singing and dancing in February after a successful five-year run.

Luxe Life can confirm that, although the giant Cirque du Soleil organization also joined the contenders to take the Mandalay Bay space, there is no one front-runner at this moment.

Some showbiz experts had figured that the release of the Meryl Streep- Pierce Brosnan movie version of Mamma Mia would prolong the departure of the theater version here. Sources say, however, there was no significant boost to the box office -– and thus the February exit date is now definite.

The theater will probably go “dark” for a while and play one or two-night headline star engagements until the replacement production is finally selected. With a dropping visitor count and the economic slowdown affecting Vegas so badly, I’m told, there’s no real rush to invest heavily in another major production spectacular.

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