Wes Anderson Royal Tenenbaums" was nominated for an Academy Award and ranked by an "Empire" poll as the 159th greatest film ever made. Anderson's next feature was "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" (2004) about a Jacques Cousteau-esque documentary filmmaker played by Bill Murray. It serves as a classic example of Anderson's style, but its critical reception was less favorable than his previous films, and its box office did not match the heights of "The Royal Tenenbaums". In September 2006, Steely Dan's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen released a tongue-in-cheek "letter of intervention" for Anderson's artistic "malaise" following the disappointing commercial and
The Phantom of the Opera (2004 film) The Phantom of the Opera (2004 film) The Phantom of the Opera is a 2004 British–American musical drama film based on Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical of the same name, which in turn is based on the French novel "Le Fantôme de l'Opéra" by Gaston Leroux. Produced and co-written by Lloyd Webber and directed by Joel Schumacher, it stars Gerard Butler in the title role, Emmy Rossum, Patrick Wilson, Miranda Richardson, Minnie Driver and Jennifer Ellison. The film was announced in 1989 but production did not start until 2002 due to Lloyd Webber's divorce and Schumacher's busy career. It was