The Phantom of the Opera newspaper articles and interviews relating to the Paris Opera House, and the character Erik (the phantom) who fills the roles of the "mad genius", disfigured monster, and one of three in a love triangle all at once. Fitzpatrick argues that all of these elements make the book good for light reading. Myers agrees that the novel makes for a good "airplane read", but says that it fails in terms of being a good mystery novel. She claims that one of the book's downfalls is that one of the important characters - the mysterious Persian - is introduced too late in
The Phantom of the Opera (2004 film) 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". Schumacher and Lloyd Webber restarted development for "The Phantom of the Opera" in December 2002. 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. As a result, Lloyd Webber invested $6 million of his own money. "The Phantom of the Opera" was produced on a $55 million budget. A