9 Movie Sets Recycled In Other Movies

4. The Phantom Of The Opera Becomes The Muppets

Phantom of the Opera The Muppets
Universal Pictures/Disney

It's time to play the music. It's time to light the lights. It's time to... reuse the set of a 1925 silent horror film?!?! Yes. Yes, it is.

That 1925 silent horror would be The Phantom of the Opera, with the legendary Lon Chaney in the role of the titular Phantom. For that film, Universal Pictures went all-out and built a giant opera set that was said to hold over 3,000 people.

The issue is, once you finish filming that movie, what do you do with such a gregarious beast of a set? Why, you simply leave it in the Universal Lot to gather dust. And that's precisely what happened.

That is, of course, until Kermit and pals raced to the silver screen in 2011 with a new Muppets picture.

Titled simply The Muppets, the crux of that movie was the Muppets and Jason Segel on a mission to save the Muppet Theatre from bankruptcy. In case you've yet to piece the puzzle together just yet, yes, the old Phantom of the Opera set was recycled and used for the aforementioned Muppet Theatre.

Since then, the giant theatre set has gone back into storage - although this time the set has been dismantled and stored securely, rather than being left to just rot.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer and Presenter, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund and Eli Roth to Kevin Smith and the Russo Brothers, to Kevin Conroy and Frank Miller, to Bret Hart and Sting, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, and Brian Flynn, to many, many more. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is a long-standing season ticket holder and an FSA Award-winner for his time co-hosting the Fearless in Devotion podcast.