In aria, Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera begs his reluctant muse “surrender to the
music of the night.” More than 70-million theatergoers, worldwide, have succumbed to the Phantom’s on stage plea since its 1986, London debut. On Broadway, this classic
love triangle with a Gothic twist, recently celebrated its 17th Anniversary at The Majestic Theatre, where it
American Premiered on January 17, 1988. The original cast
album has sold more than forty million units, making Phantom the best selling original cast
album of all time. To this day, Phantom touring companies successfully crisscross the globe. Dozens of web sites are devoted to various aspects of Andrew Lloyd Webber phanaticism. Debuting in Selected Cities December 22, The Phantom of the Opera, the motion picture, grossed a respectable, though not phantastic, $29 million in limited release. Along the way, it picked up 3 Golden Globe nominations, then three Oscar nods. On January 21, the movie’s limited release expanded to over 1500 screens. Phantom ended its first week of general release in the #9 position on the Box Office Top Ten list with anemic receipts of only $4 million. By late April, The Phantom had amassed a scary $51 million. This dismal gross put The Phantom of the Opera in the Express Lane to the
video store. Why was one of the world’s most beloved stage musicals score so poorly with moviegoers? The
film version of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s record-setting triumph delivers the goods: Phantom is an opulent, eye-popping epic, directed lovingly, and performed beautifully. How refreshing to see 18-year-old singer-actress (Emmy Rossum) portray Phantom’s 18-year-old Christine. Wasted as Jake Gyllenhaal’s
girlfriend in The Day after Tomorrow, in Phantom, Rossum is a singing revelation. Gerard Butler is a sexy, young phantom: mad, gifted, bemused. Minnie Driver is uproarious as campy, over the top La Carlotta, the temperamental diva with a
heart of coal. Patrick Wilson’s Raoul hits all of the right notes in his songs, as well as in his
love for Christine. Supervised and conducted by Simon Lee, ALW’s scarily romantic score has never sounded better, more full-bodied. The sets, costumes, and
makeup are sumptuous and captivating. This is event filmmaking at its best. Moulin Rouge, and to a greater extent, the Oscar-winning Chicago, proved there is an audience for quality motion picture musicals. The
parents who loved Phantom on stage have
children who were raised on MTV
music videos. This is neither unfamiliar, nor disliked, territory for youthful
film audiences. Phantom might even be called “the ultimate
date movie.” Sir Andrew often describes the musical as “a rock show masquerading as opera. “ What happened at the box office? There’s plenty of blame to go around. Let’s begin with the reviewers. Film critics’ daggers were drawn long before they saw the picture. Routinely contemptuous of popular hits, deeply resentful of ALW’s success, wealth, and independence, critics, on both sides of the Atlantic, ripped the picture to shreds. Rather than critiquing the movie, most of them spent their allotted space disparaging Sir Andrews’ score, calling it, among other things, “irritatingly repetitive,” and “hopelessly
lost in the 1980s.” The
New York Times’ dubbed the
songs “unlistenable,” while calling the internationally revered score “bombastic” and “pretentious.” One critic suggested the best way to ensure Osama bin Laden’s surrender is to pipe the Phantom soundtrack into his cave. Dumping cruelly, unfairly, on Sir Andrew may be among the critics’ favorite sports. But it is also irresponsible, unprofessional. And then, there’s Warner Brothers, the film’s U.S. distributor. The studio never fully got behind The Phantom of the Opera. The teaser trailers were tantalizing, but advance publicity was virtually nonexistent. Subsequent publicity was unremarkable, minimal. If the studio doesn’t have unbounded excitement for its product, then why should ticket buyers? Warner Bros., self-described as Entertaining the World for 75 Years, never decided whether to market Phantom as “a musical for the ages,” or as “a timeless
love story.” In the nuts and bolts, increasingly competitive business of motion picture marketing, one must be either fish or fowl, you can’t be both. If the distributor doesn’t know what it’s selling, then how can moviegoers know what they are buying? And then there is the issue of star power. Excellent performers all, the cast of The Phantom of the Opera does not include one box
office draw. This could be another reason for its less than phabulous gross. Has anyone successfully sold a pricey ($80 million, much of it from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s own deep pockets) motion picture musical without the benefit of star power? I can’t think of one example.
Chicago had Catharine Zeta-Jones, Renee Zellweiger, and Richard Gere, not to mention Queen Latifa. Moulin Rouge gave us
Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. If only half of those who saw Phantom on stage bought tickets to the motion picture, the
film would gross about $250 million. That’s not happening. As of this writing, domestic gross has stalled at about $40 million. Be it critical stabbing, insufficient publicity, unsure marketing, a lack of star power, some other reason, or combinations of the aforementioned, moviegoers have not surrendered to the
music of the night. Are they waiting for the motion picture’s DVD release, May 3, or has “The Music of the Night” simply had its day?
