The rights to the novel were in the public domain in Great Britain. The real threat emerged through an announcement in Variety, where an article was published concerning plans for a musical production of The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This was not a big threat to Holder, Kopit and Yeston, since their musical was intended to play on Broadway. In 1984, British producer Ken Hill revived his 1976 musical Phantom of the Opera in England. Don't all of us feel, despite outward imperfections, that deep inside we're good? And that is a character you cry for.' would be a Quasimodo character, an Elephant Man. And then it occurred to me that the story could be somewhat changed. That's the worst idea in the world! Why would you want to write a musical based on a horror story?. Initially, Yeston was skeptical of the project. Holder had obtained the rights to musicalize the novel in America from the Leroux estate, making Phantom the only Phantom of the Opera musical to do so. (a main production partner) distributed the film in the USA, and Universal Pictures (producers and/or distributors of the 1925, 1943, and 1962 adaptations of the book) released the film in Latin America and Australia.Yeston and Kopit had just finished the musical Nine, winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1982, when in 1983 they were approached by actor/director Geoffrey Holder to write a musical based on Leroux's novel. The film was a USA/UK co-production that had various distributors worldwide.

Ramin Karimloo (who had been playing Raoul in the London production of Phantom at the time of filming) appeared in a cameo role as Christine's father. The cast includes Gerard Butler as the Phantom, Emmy Rossum (who was only 17 at the time of filming) as Christine Daaé, Patrick Wilson as Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny, Miranda Richardson as Madame Giry, Jennifer Ellison as Meg Giry, and Minnie Driver (whose vocals were dubbed by Margaret Preece, a professional opera singer) as Carlotta Giudicelli.

The film was written and directed by Joel Schumacher and Webber and Webber produced the film. The Phantom of the Opera is a 2004 film adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart's 1986 stage musical, which is based on the novel of the same name by Gaston Leroux.

The phantom of the opera overture