What Went Wrong with the PHANTOM OF THE OPERA Film Adaptation?

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 4:02pm

The film version of Phantom in 2004 was one of the things that got me into musical theatre as a kid. I was so blown away by the score, the opulence, and the visuals (please remember I was a kid, LOL)... And now I'm surprised to see that it was generally poorly received. What went wrong with it?

[hork]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 4:07pm

I can't speak for others, but for me what went wrong was that it was an adaptation of Phantom of the Opera.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 4:08pm

It was an important part of my coming into my love of musicals too, I still love it even though I acknowledge that it's very poor filmmaking.

If I had to sum it up very shortly I would say that it's a tad (or a ton) self indulgent. 

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 4:10pm

I've always liked it, actually. 

[gypsy101]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 4:14pm

i was 12 when it released and i'm not a very big fan of the musical at all but i actually kind of like the movie. i think Prima Donna is well done and Minnie Driver is hilarious. Emmy Rossum isn't fantastic but at least she's the right age so she looks the part. i haven't seen it in a while but i don't think it's as bad as people said.

[The Rural Juror]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 4:52pm

Here is a link to Lindsay Ellis' very thorough assessment on why the Phantom movie doesn't work. I think it's an awesome assessment of not only the Phantom movie, but movie musical adaptations in general.

https://youtu.be/-m5I_5Vnh6A

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 4:58pm

Bringing Joel Schumacher (the guy who killed off the Batman franchise with Batman Forever and Bateman & Robin) on board to direct.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 5:16pm

- Emmy Rossum just didn't have the voice.  I don't know if it was acting, direction, or both, but her Christine also had even less personality than usual.  I also didn't like how they cast her so young.

- A lot of the changes to the storyline made no sense (such as changing the year, which would have coincided with the Franco-Prussian War, or having Carlotta be unpopular with the audience--like, why would they keep her if the audience hated her?)

- Gerard Butler was just not believable as someone whose voice was supposed to be so beautiful and seductive.

- They made Erik's "deformity" look more like bad sunburn

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 5:26pm

The casting of the main trio remains my biggest issue. Emmy Rossum was indeed too young (only 16/17 at the time of filming) and not ready to carry a role that is rather thinly written and needs the actress to bring a lot to it. The deer in the headlights look for the entire film just didn't cut it. It also brought a very strange dynamic to the love triangle with her co-stars being 13 and 17 years older than her.

 

There was a lot of the movie that I did enjoy. I thought the casting of all the supporting roles was quite good, and I actually enjoyed the design and overall look of the film a lot. I just wish that Schumacher had put the same thought and care into casting the main trio.

[TellZ]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 5:28pm

What's wrong with the film is Joel Schumacher.

- It takes a long time for anyone to start singing in the film, and then there's SO much singing. Dreamgirls had a similar problem - stylistically Dreamgirls waited until "Family" to have the characters sing without being in a performance. ESTABLISH CONVENTIONS AT THE BEGINNING PLEASE

- Dressing everyone in Masquerade in black and white identical costumes. Did you even hear the lyrics Joel?

- The laughable attempts at artistry like the leaping deer outside Raoul's carriage window. We get it, you're a serious director Joel, just stick to the story

- Gerard Butler. Weak voice, weak presence and weak makeup. Christine's big dilemma was choosing between good looking limp noodle Raoul and good looking Phantom with rosacea

- Loved the overture. Credit where credit is due!

- Minnie Driver, though saddled with odd directorial choices, gives the only three dimensional performance in the whole film and SHE'S DUBBED

- Emmy Rossum spends 2+ hours doing her best deer in the headlights face

- Madame Giry. Can anyone in this film do math? Raoul is on death's doorstep in old age prosthetics and we're supposed to believe that Madame Giry is still around? Gurl.

- Like the new tour (which is abysmal for different reasons, except the Masquerade black and white idea which they took from the film because bad ideas are contagious), the film disregards why Phantom works onstage and tries to fill in holes. Filling them in just makes more holes. Hal Prince made Phantom what it is, as it certainly doesn't work on paper. The production is more than the sum of its parts, which is why Hal Prince and the late Maria Bjornson as well, were geniuses and the production has stood the test of time.

[NOWaWarning]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 5:40pm

Bringing Joel Schumacher (the guy who killed off the Batman franchise with Batman Forever and Bateman & Robin) on board to direct.

 

Seriously! How does that guy still have a career?

 

[JBroadway]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 5:51pm

TellZ said: "- Madame Giry. Can anyone in this film do math? Raoul is on death's doorstep in old age prosthetics and we're supposed to believe that Madame Giry is still around? Gurl."

 

Isn't it supposed to be MEG Giry in the flash-forward scenes? 

 

[BroadwayConcierge]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 5:52pm

Rural Juror, that video provided a FANTASTIC explanation to my question. I watched the entire thing. Man, my brain is totally wired to analyze and see theatre, not film! But I totally see where the substantial flaws exist now. I wish some studio would take that girl's suggestions and redo the whole thing. It could've been amazing.

Huge thanks to everybody else who has written in response!

[hork]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 5:59pm

TellZ said:
- Loved the overture. Credit where credit is due!

I agree with this. The overture/chandelier sequence is absolutely stunning. It gave me goosebumps and tricked me into thinking I was about to see a great movie.

[Castle2]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 6:53pm

JBroadway said: "TellZ said: "- Madame Giry. Can anyone in this film do math? Raoul is on death's doorstep in old age prosthetics and we're supposed to believe that Madame Giry is still around? Gurl."

Isn't it supposed to be MEG Giry in the flash-forward scenes? "

After initially being confused by the ages and then doing the math I figured it was meant to be Meg in the flash forwards. 

[Jeffrey Karasarides]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 6:56pm

Here's a review of the film from Musical Hell...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOLoNK-ko6k

[TellZ]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 7:01pm

Admittedly it's been years since I've watched the film, but it was Miranda Richardson in the scene looking just like Mme Giry. If it was supposed to be Meg, that was definitely not clear, so more great work from Schumacher!

[Alex Kulak2]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 7:50pm

The fact that Andrew Lloyd Webber had almost 100% creative control over the project. He picked Gerard Butler because he liked his voice, he wrote the screenplay, he made them just recite some of the lyrics without singing them.

[Elibal]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 8:00pm

The musical hell review they posted is great, as all of the reviews from that channel, but this video I feel is quite a good, deep analysis into what when wrong, if you really want to know. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m5I_5Vnh6A

 

Updated On: 12/11/16 at 08:00 PM

[ozjust4]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 8:07pm

Gerald Butler was absolutely terrible in every way, Emmy Rossum's voice was incredibly weak, and Joel Schumacher's direction was horrendous. 

[Dave28282]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 8:35pm

The scenes are approached too literal and at many points they apologize for the singing. How on earth can you expect the audience to believe this language then.

Also, the singing was extremely lame.

I loved the review video of that girl!

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 12/11/16 at 10:01pm

I am a certified Phantom phanatic but I have never been able to bring myself to sit through the entire movie. I have been in the room when the entire movie played and I had to keep looking away in dismay and disbelief. Minnie Driver was wrong for Carlotta, and Emmy Rossum was all wrong for Christine. The Phantom movie should have had the same opulent look and color scheme as Moulin Rouge. It should have been sumptuous and romantic and over the top. Instead it was pedestrian and beige and safe. 

[Jarethan]

Posted: 12/12/16 at 1:19am

I actually enjoyed the movie quite a lot, considerably more than (the first half of) Les Mis (I did enjoy the second half), Nine, The Producers, Rent, Annie, and Evita.  I actually enjoyed it more than the movie of Dreamgirls, although I would acknowledge that Dreamgirls is a better movie. (Going back to the 70s and 80s, I thought it was better than Hello Dolly, On a Clear Day, Finian's Rainbow, the original Annie, The Wiz, and Half a Sixpence.  That is a pretty decent percentage of there movie musicals made in that timeframe.

I think there was one built-in problem: it was very stage-bound, since it all took place in the Opera House, with the exception of the cemetery scene, which was so obvious a stage set.  Couldn't they have opened it up a little bit?  I think this hurt a lot.  A better director could have figured out how to make it less stage bound.

The three leads were okay, but none of them gave a star performance.  The charisma quotient was very low for a romantic musical.  On a side note, I thought Patrick Wilson's wig was so awful that I found it distracting.  The role is one-dimensional enough to start out...then to give him that hairdo just made the character more vapid.  

Back to the scenes at the cemetery...the fight was so badly staged as to be laughable...when I have played the movie -- and I really do enjoy a lot of it -- I fast-forward through that entire sequence, which makes the movie much more enjoyable.

I guess I would term it a guilty pleasure, since -- in the final analysis -- I have always enjoyed watching the movie (at least the 85% that I do watch), even though I believe it could have been a lot better.

[Fan123]

Posted: 12/12/16 at 3:34am

It just goes to show how people's tastes vary, but I felt that one of the many issues with the film was that it tried too hard to be (what was presumably Joel Schumacher's notion of) sumptuous and romantic, and thereby crossed over into cheesy. (Insert argument here about how Phantom is inherently cheesy... maybe, but it's more my kind of cheese onstage somehow.) I would rather that they had used the advantages of film to ramp up the spooky factor a bit, using closeups and shadows. Let us experience what's happening almost as if we're Christine. The show onstage doesn't try to be fully terrifying, but you're meant to get a few pleasant shivers down your spine and be surprised several times. Instead, in the film, we got overly prop-stuffed and brightly-lit sets (even the spooky guy's underground lair, sigh) and a relatively un-mysterious Phantom. For example, the scene in which the film telegraphed the Phantom's forthcoming scheme by showing us the cup swap prior to Carlotta's 'croak',  robbed the 'croak' of its surprise and took away the sense of the Phantom's mysterious omnipotence generated by moments like that in the stage show. As somebody else said, the movie over-explained where it should have just let the 'plot holes' play on the audience's mind. (In fairness, I haven't seen the film in years and years - tried to rewatch it once and gave up - so I might be misremembering.)

[Dave28282]

Posted: 12/12/16 at 7:02am

Phantom4ever said: "I am a certified Phantom phanatic but I have never been able to bring myself to sit through the entire movie. I have been in the room when the entire movie played and I had to keep looking away in dismay and disbelief. Minnie Driver was wrong for Carlotta, and Emmy Rossum was all wrong for Christine. The Phantom movie should have had the same opulent look and color scheme as Moulin Rouge. It should have been sumptuous and romantic and over the top. Instead it was pedestrian and beige and safe. 

 

"

I agree, they need to get rid of this stupid "realistic and literal" mindset, because that will never work in this artform and this language of storytelling. That's why Moulin Rouge does work.