Joel Schumacher might be better known for his ''Batman'' movies and ''St. Elmo's Fire,'' but he also directed the 2004 big-screen ''The Phantom of the Opera,'' starring Gerard Butler, Emmy Rossum and Patrick Wilson. He and Andrew Lloyd Webber co-wrote the screenplay. In addition, Schumacher wrote the screenplay to the 1998 film adaptation of ''The Wiz,'' starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson. Earlier in his career, he was the costume designer for 1970s movies, like Neil Simon's ''The Prisoner of 2nd Avenue'' and Anthony Perkins & Stephen Sondheim's ''The Last of Sheila.''
Who's a fan of the 2004 ''Phantom'' film? Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart wrote a new pretty, Oscar-nominated song for it, ''Learn to Be Lonely.'' Otherwise, I thought the filmed stage version of ''Phantom'' (2011), with Sierra Boggess and Ramin Karimloo, at Royal Albert Hall, was far superior. |
