The feature film Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera attempts to bring the enormously successful stage musical version to life on the silver screen. The 15 year collaboration between producer Andrew Lloyd Webber and director Joel Schumacher sparked a movie that combines elements of the musical production with visual direction targeted towards the big screen; the hopeful result being a character driven cinematic masterpiece as hugely successful as its theatre-based predecessor.

Phantom of the Opera’s Has Had Great Success as a Stage Musical
Andrew Lloyd Webber’s original musical production, based on Gaston Leroux’s novel “The Phantom of the Opera”, has proven to be very successful, having generated over $3.2 billion in worldwide box office receipts. The theatrical production is the largest grossing stage or screen production in the world.

The musical debuted on October 9, 1986 in London’s West End at Her Majesty’s Theatre. Since its debut, the popular stage production has been performed over 65,000 times for an estimated total audience reach of over 80 million people. Theatergoers in 18 countries have witnessed the popular show and the show marked its 7000th performance in August 2003.

The Stage Production is an Award Winner
Various stage productions of Phantom have earned more than 50 significant awards. Of these awards, highlights include seven Tony Awards, three Olivier Awards, seven Drama Desk Awards, and three Outer Critic’s Circle Awards.

The Phantom of the Opera’s first Broadway production, opening in January 1988 at New York’s Majestic Theatre, is now the second-longest running musical in Broadway History, only surpassed by another Lloyd Webber production, Cats. Broadway audience numbers for Phantom alone surpass 10.3 million.

“Phantom is a very personal piece in my career,” says Lloyd Webber in Warner Bros. Press material. Lloyd Webber is also the producer-composer of several other renowned musicals, including, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Sunset Boulevard, Starlight Express, and Aspects of Love. Throughout his career, he has received seven Tony Awards, three Grammys, a Golden Globe, and an Academy Award.

Lloyd Webber Shared his Film Vision with Joel Schumacher
In 1988, after taking Phantom to Broadway, Lloyd Webber originally approached Schumacher about co-creating a feature film adaptation of his musical. Lloyd Webber had been impressed with Schumacher’s vampire thriller The Lost Boys. “I thought Joel had an incredible visual sense and his use of music in the film was exceptional,” Lloyd Webber told Warner Bros. “One of the greatest joys of collaborating with Joel is that he has a great ear for music; he really gets it, he understands how the music drives the story.”

While both Lloyd Webber and Schumacher were interested in collaborating on the film version of Phantom, issues in Lloyd Webbers personal life and Schumacher’s other film projects such as Batman Forever, A Time to Kill, The Client, Falling Down, and Phone Booth, prevented the two from collaborating until December 2002. Meeting Schumacher for dinner in London, Lloyd Webber again proposed the idea of a film version of Phantom of the Opera to the director. In Warner Bros. Press kit, Schumacher explains his reason for accepting the project at that time. “I had just done a series of gritty, more experimental films than the mainstream blockbusters I’d been associated with in the past,” Schumacher says of his films 8mm, Flawless, Tigerland, Veronica Guerin, and Phone Booth. “Phantom seemed as far from twelve days in a phone booth as I could get. I’ve done so many different genres, but never a musical. It seemed like a huge challenge and I like that.”

Along with the desire for a different directing experience, Schumacher was drawn into the cinematic project because of the different Phantom characters. “One of the reasons this tragic love story has been part of our culture since Leroux wrote his novel is because we identify with the Phantom,” he believes. “The Phantom is a physical manifestation of whatever human beings feel is unlovable about themselves. He is a heart-breaking character – much like the hunchback of Notre Dame and the Beast in Beauty and the Beast.”

The director also notes the “million of people who cannot afford to see Phantom in a legitimate theatre” and the many people who “don’t live in an area where they can get to a theatre where the musical is playing” as an additional motivation for making the film. “There are people who love Andrew’s music, and people who have always wanted to see Phantom onstage, and now they’ll have the opportunity to see a version of it,” Schumacher explains.

Adapting the Screenplay from the Theatrical Musical
For the film version of Phantom, Lloyd Webber and Schumacher wanted to further examine the histories and backstories of the key characters and give the audience a more detailed look into the backstage world of the opera house. “In the stage musical, we touch on the Phantom’s childhood, but we don’t visually go back in time to explore it as we do in the film,” Lloyd Webber explains. “It’s a very important change for us, because it makes the Phantom’s plight even more understandable.”

“The stage show concentrates on the Phantom, Christine, and Raoul,” Schumacher explains further. “Not only did we want to give the audience more insight as to how each of these characters arrived at the opera house, we also wove the backstage activity – the plasterers, prop makers, wig makers, scenic artists, dancers, and singers – into the fabric of the story.”

Building upon the mutual trust and respect developed between Schumacher and Lloyd Webber during their 15-year friendship, the two have brought their collaborative vision of The Phantom of the Opera to the silver screen. Lloyd Webber has high hopes for his film, “The film looks and sounds fabulous and I think it’s an extraordinarily fine document of the stage show,” he enthuses. “While it doesn’t deviate much from the stage material, the film has given it an even deeper emotional center. It’s not based on the theatre visually or direction-wise, but it’s still got exactly the same essence. And that’s all I could have ever hoped for.

Only time will tell if this feature film will gain the popularity, awards, and respect its theatrical predecessor has obtained, but hopes are high for this film adaptation of a theatrical classic, The Phantom of the Opera.