initial reports of a $180,000 salary were "ridiculous" and "a piece of fantasy journalism from my home country," adding that "anyone who knows how many people you can fit in a theater knows that you don't do Broadway to make money". The possibility of the film role, meanwhile, was never mentioned again. By the time an official deal with Crawford was announced, by now downgraded to a yearlong contract in the role rather than three, he had been pulling his weight in the creative control department; as Sonenberg put it, "[He has been] working with us the last several months on input on the book." Crawford's agent Mort Viner reported that the role would not be a repeat of his Phantom performance "because of the comedy." Indeed, Crawford was involved in reshaping the role of von Krolock in a more comic fashion, insisting that the role as written was too close to the Phantom. Later reports would claim that Crawford, paranoid about doing anything that could be compared to the Phantom, agreed with the party line that the piece should be a comedy on the lines of Mel Brooks and that he personally revised and rearranged the book to that end, causing co-librettist Ives to remark that he was a stenographer rather than a writer, but in truth, the show already exhibited signs of much larger changes of a similar fashion as far back as the workshop production in mid-May 2001 before Crawford's casting; it seems that Crawford's major contributions at this time were in the vein of a "Continental accent" (a bizarre mix of Italian and Cockney tones that Crawford claimed made singing the score easier) and input on costume designs aimed at hiding alleged weight problems (jowls in particular). After rehearsals were to begin in January, the opening was set for April 2002 following six weeks of previews starting in March. Further casting sessions for secondary leads and ensemble were set for September 2001. As a consequence of the September 11 attacks, however, the game-plan changed significantly. With most of the show's major creative team (including co-director Caird) based in London, a myriad of logistic delays were caused by mass cancellation of flights, among other variables. Realizing there was no way to open before the Tony cut-off as planned, and (it later emerged) unable to raise his share of the investment on time, Sonenberg publicly announced the postponement