One may think of many things to describe Gerard Butler: late-career matinee idol, romantic comedy buffoon, jacked Greek gladiator.

But “musical theater anti-hero” might not make it into the top five descriptors. Yet, while most remember the Scottish actor’s star-making turn to be his role in the 2007 fantasy epic 300, his first shot at critical and commercial success as the lead role in Joel Schumacher‘s adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s blockbuster musical extravaganza, The Phantom of the Opera.

The film version of Lloyd Webber’s Tony-winning musical began its long development cycle almost immediately after the show gained international popularity.

Originally, the show’s two stars, Michael Crawford and Sarah Brightman, were set to reprise their roles on film, but the film fell apart following Brightman and Lloyd Webber’s divorce.

Director Schumacher was always attached, but the ’90s were a big time for him (he had two Batman movies to make, plus The Client and A Time to Kill) and he dropped out of the project before returning a decade later.

By then, some big names were attached to the lead role, including John Travolta, Antonio Banderas, and Hugh Jackman. When none were available, they called upon Gerard Butler, who had so far had a single lead role (in Dracula 2000) and no professional singing experience.

Photo: Warner Bros.
For the role of Christine Daaé, the object of the Phantom’s desire, producers eyed Katie Holmes. Anne Hathaway eventually landed the role, but dropped out to shoot The Princess Diaries 2.

Her replacement was the terminally boring Emmy Rossum, who by then had been featured in Mystic River and The Day After Tomorrow. (I also like to think of her as the poor man’s Jennifer Love Hewitt).

Patrick Wilson, who had received a Tony nomination for his role in The Full Monty on Broadway but had only been in two movies (one being a meaty role in Mike Nichols’ Angels in America), was cast as Raoul, Christine’s suitor and the Phantom’s romantic nemesis.

The film’s mediocrity isn’t surprising given the musically inexperienced and generally unrecognizable cast.

Plus, the source material itself is kind of crappy — it’s two-and-a-half hours of music that is, at its root, a variation on a single pop-musical hit that reached saturation in the ’90s with its inclusion in numerous ice-skating routines.

Plus, the story is a little uncomfortable. A creepy, moody guy who lives in a basement and stalks the pretty young woman to whom he serves as an unsolicited opera tutor, only to kidnap her and try to murder her boyfriend when she puts him in the Friendzone? It’s basically Men’s Rights Activism: The Musical.

I guess the movie — and Gerard Butler in it — are supposed to be sexy? Searingly romantic? I can see the potential, possibly, but the wooden performance from Rossum paired with the masked Butler (who no one even knew anyway) did not make a very sensual combination.

It had he opposite effect: it’s hilariously clunky and silly, a complete cinematic and musical misfire that fell flat.

I mean, even the dramatic reveal of the Phantom’s deformity is sort of a joke:

It was a modest success, doubling its budget at the box office, but the film is particularly unremarkable. While Butler came out of the experience unscathed thanks to the massive success of 300, the rest of its cast (including Minnie Driver, who once showed promise as the ingenue in Good Will Hunting and then sort of disappeared) went on to make rather forgettable career choices (although, I suppose, you could argue that Rossum’s role on Shameless is somewhat successful).

The point is: Gerard Butler may have hoped we’ve forgotten about this, but I never will.