A new take on The Phantom of the Opera is coming to the big screen, Deadline reports.
Universal will make a new movie based on the 1910 novel by Gaston Leroux, titled Phantom. However, France will become the French Quarter, as this version will be set in modern-day New Orleans.
John Legend is on a board as a producer and the script was written by John Fusco – he was the creator of the Netflix series Marco Polo and has penned the scripts for other movies like The Highwaymen, starring Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson, the animated movie Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and the musical drama Crossroads.
"This is set in the sultry nightlife scene of modern-day New Orleans, the world of jazz, R&B, neo-Soul, and funk," Fusco told Deadline. "The French Quarter, where New Orleans is not only known as America’s most haunted city, but the music, French Creole culture, the voodoo mystique, masquerade pageantry of Mardi Gras, just lent itself to a natural adaptation of the Paris setting, and a story that has revenge, unrequited love, and mystery."
The Phantom of the Opera was previously adapted for the screen in 1925, but its most famous adaptation is the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, which has been running on Broadway and in the West End since the '80s. The original story follows an opera singer and a phantom haunting the Paris Opera House.
