Produced and co-written by Lloyd Webber and directed by Joel Schumacher, it stars Gerard Butler as the titular character, with Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver, Simon Callow, Ciarán Hinds, Victor McGuire and Jennifer Ellison in supporting roles.

Theatre manager Monsieur Lefèvre plans to retire, leaving the opera house under the ownership of scrappers Richard Firmin and Gilles André, who introduce their patron, Viscount Raoul de Chagny.

Facing the performance's cancellation, ballet mistress Madame Giry suggests that dancer Christine Daaé, Raoul's childhood sweetheart, to stand in for Carlotta; she displays her singing talents and is a success on opening night.

Christine tells her best friend Meg, Giry's daughter, that she is being coached by a tutor she calls the "Angel of Music", which had been sent by her late father following his passing.

That night, the masked Opera Ghost, better known as the "Phantom", appears before Christine from the dressing room's mirror, leading her away to his underground lair.

Raoul and the managers plan to capture the Phantom during his opera, but he usurps the lead tenor to get to Christine, who soon unmasks him during a duet and exposes his deformed face to the horrified audience.

The Phantom then abducts Christine and retreats as he causes the auditorium's chandelier to crash, sparking a building-wide inferno to cover his tracks.

Later, in 1919, at a public auction held to clear out the now-condemned opera house's vaults, an elderly Raoul bids against the now-retired Giry for the Phantom's music box.

Warner Bros. purchased the film rights to The Phantom of the Opera in early 1989, granting Andrew Lloyd Webber total artistic control.

[6] 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.

[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.

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.

Despite also lacking singing experience, Ciarán Hinds was cast by Schumacher as Richard Firmin; the two had previously worked together on Veronica Guerin.

[6] Ramin Karimloo, who later played the Phantom as well as Raoul on London's West End, briefly appears as the portrait of Gustave Daaé, Christine's father.

[6] Cinesite additionally created a miniature version of the auditorium's chandelier used for its fall, since a life-size model was too big for the actual set.

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.

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.

[38] Andy Nelson Anna Behlmer Martin Evans Celia Bobak Joel Schumacher John Fenner Paul Kirby Anthony Caron-Delion Iain McFadyen Laurent Ben-Mimoun Anupam Das Laurent Ben-Mimoun Anupam Das 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.

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.

"[42] 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.

"[43] 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.

"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".

[45] 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.

"[46] 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.

"[48] In a 2021 interview with Variety, Andrew Lloyd Webber revealed that he personally felt director Joel Schumacher made a mistake in casting Gerard Butler.