Erik (The Phantom of the Opera) strangles the publisher and tries to retrieve his music, only to be disfigured when the publisher's assistant throws etching acid in his face. In the musical horror film "Phantom of the Paradise" (1974), Winslow (the Phantom character) gets his head caught in a record-press, while Robert Englund's horror-version has him selling his soul to Satan and having his face mutilated as a result. This version also has a gruesome variation on the mask, in which Erik is sewing flesh to his face. In Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical adaptation, only half of Erik's face is deformed (thus the famous half-mask often
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