The Phantom of the Opera (2004 film)

Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to The Phantom of the Opera in early 1989, granting Andrew Lloyd Webber total artistic control.[4] Despite interest from A-list directors, Lloyd Webber and Warner Bros. instantly hired Joel Schumacher to direct; Lloyd Webber had been impressed with Schumacher's use of music in The Lost Boys.[5] The duo wrote the screenplay that same year,[6] while Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman were cast to reprise their roles from the original stage production. Filming was set to begin at Pinewood Studios in England in July 1990, under a $25 million budget.[7]

However, the start date was pushed to November 1990 at both Babelsberg Studios in Potsdam, Germany and Barrandov Studios in Prague, Czech Republic.[8] Production for The Phantom of the Opera was stalled with Lloyd Webber and Brightman's divorce.[9] "Everything got tied up in settlements", Schumacher reflected. "Then my career took off and I was really busy."[10] As a result, The Phantom of the Opera languished in development limbo for Warner Bros. throughout the 1990s.[11] In February 1997, Schumacher considered returning, but eventually dropped out in favour of Batman Unchained, Runaway Jury and Dreamgirls.[12] The studio was keen to cast John Travolta for the lead role,[13] but also held discussions with Antonio Banderas, who undertook vocal preparation and sang the role of the Phantom in the TV special Andrew Lloyd Webber: The Royal Albert Hall Celebration.[14]

Schumacher and Lloyd Webber restarted development for The Phantom of the Opera in December 2002.[6] It was then announced in January 2003 that Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group had purchased the film rights from Warner Bros. in an attempt to produce The Phantom of the Opera independently.[14] As a result, Lloyd Webber invested $6 million of his own money.[15] The Phantom of the Opera was produced on an $80 million budget.[3] Warner Bros. was given a first-look deal for distribution; when the principal cast was chosen in June 2003, Warner Bros. paid under $8 million to acquire the North American distribution rights.[16][3]

Hugh Jackman was originally cast for the role of Phantom, but he faced scheduling conflicts with Van Helsing. "They rang to ask about my availability", Jackman explained in an April 2003 interview, "probably about 20 other actors as well. I wasn't available, unfortunately. So, that was a bummer."[17] "We needed somebody who has a bit of rock and roll sensibility in him", Andrew Lloyd Webber explained. "He's got to be a bit rough, a bit dangerous; not a conventional singer. Christine is attracted to the Phantom because he's the right side of danger."[6] Director Joel Schumacher had been impressed with Gerard Butler's performance in Dracula 2000.[18] Prior to his audition, Butler had no professional singing experience and had only taken four voice lessons before singing "The Music of the Night" for Lloyd Webber.[4]

Katie Holmes, who began working with a vocal coach, was the front-runner for Christine Daaé in March 2003.[19] She was later replaced by Anne Hathaway, a classically trained soprano, in 2004. However, Hathaway dropped out of the role because the production schedule of the film overlapped with The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, which she was contractually obligated to make.[20] Hathaway was then replaced with Emmy Rossum. The actress modeled the relationship between the Phantom and Christine after Suzanne Farrell and George Balanchine.[15] Patrick Wilson was cast as Raoul based on his previous Broadway theatre career. For the role of Carlotta, Minnie Driver devised an over-the-top, camp performance as the egotistical prima donna. Despite also lacking singing experience, Ciarán Hinds was cast by Schumacher as Richard Firmin; the two had previously worked together on Veronica Guerin.[5] Ramin Karimloo also briefly appears as the portrait of Gustave Daaé, Christine's father. Karimloo later played the Phantom as well as the role of Raoul on London's West End.

Principal photography lasted from 15 September 2003 to 15 January 2004. The film was shot entirely using eight sound stages at Pinewood Studios,[21] where, on the Pinewood backlot, the bottom half exterior of the opera was constructed. The top half was implemented using a combination of computer-generated imagery (CGI) and a scale model created by Cinesite. The surrounding Paris skyline for "All I Ask of You" was entirely composed of matte paintings.[5] Cinesite also created a miniature falling chandelier, since a life-size model was too big for the actual set.[22]

Production designer Anthony D. G. Pratt was influenced by French architect Charles Garnier, designer of the original Paris opera house, as well as Edgar Degas, John Singer Sargent, Gustave Caillebotte, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Schumacher was inspired by Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (1946), where a hallway is lined with arms holding candelabra. The cemetery was based on the Père Lachaise and Montparnasse.[23] Costume designer Alexandra Byrne utilised a limited black, white, gold and silver colour palette for the Masquerade ball in spite of the lyrics being sung indicating that it is a multicoloured affair in which mauve, puce, green, and black amongst others are on display.[5]

The Phantom of the Opera was released in the United States on 22 December 2004. With a limited release of 622 theaters, it opened at tenth place at the weekend box office, grossing $6.5 million across five days.[24] After expanding to 907 screens on 14 January 2005[25] the film obtained the 9th spot at the box office,[26] which it retained during its 1,511 screens wide release on 21 January 2005.[27][28] The total domestic gross was $51.2 million. With a further $107 million earned internationally, The Phantom of the Opera reached a worldwide total of $154.6 million.[2] A few foreign markets were particularly successful,[29] such as Japan, where the film's ¥4.20 billion ($35 million) gross stood as the 6th most successful foreign film and 9th overall of the year.[30][31] The United Kingdom and South Korea both had over $10 million in receipts, with $17.5 million and $11.9 million, respectively.[2][32]

Anthony Pratt and Celia Bobak were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Art Direction, as was John Mathieson for Best Cinematography. However, both categories were awarded to The Aviator. Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Charles Hart were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song ("Learn to Be Lonely") but lost to "Al otro lado del río" from The Motorcycle Diaries.[33] The song was also nominated for the Golden Globe but it lost to Alfie's "Old Habits Die Hard". In the same ceremony, Emmy Rossum was nominated for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, losing to Annette Bening in Being Julia.[34] At the Saturn Awards, Rossum won for Best Performance by a Younger Actor,[35] while The Phantom of the Opera was nominated for Best Action/Adventure/Thriller Film and Alexandra Byrne was nominated for Costume Design.[36]

The soundtrack of the film was released in two separate CD formats on November 23, 2004 as a two-disc deluxe edition which includes dialogue from the film and a single-disc highlights edition.

The film had its initial North America video release on DVD and VHS on May 3, 2005 followed by its first digital release on HD-DVD on April 18, 2006 and a Blu-ray edition on October 31, 2006.

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 33%, based on reviews from 171 critics, with an average score of 5.01/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "The music of the night has hit something of a sour note: critics are calling the screen adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber's popular musical histrionic boring and lacking in both romance and danger. Still, some have praised the film for its sheer spectacle."[37] On Metacritic it has a weighted average score of 40 out of 100 based on 39 reviews, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[38] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[39]

Despite having been impressed with the cast, Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader wrote that "Teen romance and operetta-style singing replace the horror elements familiar to film-goers, and director Joel Schumacher obscures any remnants of classy stage spectacle with the same disco overkill he brought to Batman Forever."[40] Stephanie Zacharek of Salon.com believed that Phantom of the Opera "takes everything that's wrong with Broadway and puts it on the big screen in a gaudy splat."[41]

In a mixed review for Newsweek, David Ansen praised Rossum's performance, but criticized the filmmakers for their focus on visual design rather than presenting a cohesive storyline. "Its kitschy romanticism bored me on Broadway and it bores me here—I may not be the most reliable witness. Still, I can easily imagine a more dashing, charismatic Phantom than Butler's. Rest assured, however, Lloyd Webber's neo-Puccinian songs are reprised and reprised and reprised until you're guaranteed to go out humming."[42] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly believed Schumacher did not add enough dimension in adapting The Phantom of the Opera. "Schumacher, the man who added nipples to Batman's suit, has staged Phantom chastely, as if his job were to adhere the audience to every note".[43]

Roger Ebert, who gave the film three stars out of four, reasoned that "part of the pleasure of movie-going is pure spectacle—of just sitting there and looking at great stuff and knowing it looks terrific. There wasn't much Schumacher could have done with the story or the music he was handed, but in the areas over which he held sway, he has triumphed."[44] In contrasting between the popularity of the Broadway musical, Michael Dequina of Film Threat magazine explained that "it conjures up this unexplainable spell that leaves audiences sad, sentimental, swooning, smiling—in some way transported and moved. Now, in Schumacher's film, that spell lives on."[45]