Erique Claudin is the primary antagonist/anti-hero of Phantom of the Opera (1943 film), loosely based on Erik in Gaston Leroux's 1910 novel The Phantom of the Opera. In the original script of the movie, Erique was Christine's father, but that idea was dropped and Erique's interest with Christine remained unexplained. A lot of other things were also different from the original Erik character. Like that Erique wasn't deformed from birth, that he got his face destroyed by acid