Like awaiting the results of a biopsy, we've been dreading the release of further details about Andrew Lloyd Webber's plans to write a sequel to classy Broadway blockbuster The Phantom of the Opera. Webber announced his diabolical plan back in 2007, but suffered a setback when his new kitten destroyed all the music he'd written! But not even the selfless heroism of, um, cats can stop this maestro, and now he's announced quite the surprise.
Webber has revealed that the sequel will start a decade after the original's conclusion, with the story shifting from the Phantom's lair beneath the Paris opera house to Coney Island. Which seems fitting, since the current amusement district is also a phantom of its former self, thanks to a deadlock between the city and developer Joe Sitt. But Webber tells the Associated Press he's setting the action at the boardwalk's turn-of-the-century heyday, when Coney Island was "the eighth wonder of the world. Think of Vegas and then triple it." (These days, you can think of Reno and quarter it.)
The new musical will be called Love Never Dies and will be unleashed upon London theatergoers in March, and detonated in New York in November 2010. Prepare. Plan. Stay informed.
