It’s been adapted successfully for the screen and highly profitably for the stage, and now Gaston Leroux’s 1909 novel The Phantom Of The Opera is headed for TV in more than one incarnation.
US network ABC announced recently that it was developing a series based on the concept from Desperate Housewives creator Marc Cherry. But here comes Endemol Studios, which has enlisted Tony Krantz and Jean-Pierre Jeunet to work on their own take.
Krantz is at work on the script for the story, which is set in 1919 and re-imagines the “phantom” as a British World War I fighter pilot who suffered catastrophic burns across most of his body. Quite how that leads to him lurking around an opera stage remains to be seen.
Still, Jeunet’s confident: “I look forward to directing Tony Krantz’s imaginative version of Phantom of the Opera with Endemol Studios,” he tells Variety. “We have an opportunity to re-tell Gaston Leroux’s classic novel of mystery and intriguing romance against a background of great social change.”
There’s no sign yet which channel might take the project, or when either of the competing shows will hit the air. But we do know that neither will have anything to do with Andrew Lloyd Webber’s long-running musical. Or Gerard Butler warbling his heart out...