Mike Markus sent me a link to a different cut of the Sweeney Todd trailer. This one contains even less singing - that is to say, none at all - but does, in many ways, present a much more attractive looking film.
Enjoy.
The below Sweeney Todd poster turned up for auction on E-Bay. Naughty but nice and well outside of my price range.
In other Todd news, a piece in Variety has confirmed that an R-rating is indeed expected for the film, with no mention of any plans to cut it down to PG-13. Which suggests either that Baz Bamigboye is a liar, or he's mistaken or he was telling the truth and, in his world at least, an 18 translates to an NC-17 and a 15 to an R.
The Sweeney Todd site has gone live and contains the official synopsis:
Johnny Depp and Tim Burton join forces again in a big-screen adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s award-winning musical thriller Sweeney Todd. Depp stars in the title role as a man unjustly sent to prison who vows revenge, not only for that cruel punishment, but for the devastating consequences of what happened to his wife and daughter. When he returns to reopen his barber shop, Sweeney Todd becomes the Demon Barber of Fleet Street who “shaved the heads of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard from again.” Joining Depp is Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Sweeney’s amorous accomplice, who creates diabolical meat pies. The cast also includes Alan Rickman, who portrays the evil Judge Turpin, who sends Sweeney to prison and Timothy Spall as the Judge’s wicked associate Beadle Bamford and Sacha Baron Cohen is a rival barber, the flamboyant Signor Adolfo Pirelli.
- A Fantastic 4/Silver Surfer ad aired during the Heroes series finale. Now, it's online. Do you see a shadow of Galactus' helmet in it or not?
- Reading between the lines, it seems that Southland Tales may not get a theatrical release, even in it's 'repaired' version. Have any of you seen it? Be honest - is it as outrageously bad as it looks?
- Seems like Soundwave the Transformer will be an iPod or, perhaps more accurately, a similar mp3 player.
- The entirety of Masters of Horror season 1 is available in 2 cheap boxsets here in the UK. The US will be getting their compendium in a single hulking pack this August, and Dread Central have the first look at the eco-unfriendly packaging. I'll split my sides laughing if this is a huge, huge sales winner and IDT are forced to realise what a mistake they've made letting season 3 go to Lionsgate.
- Extra scenes and songs featuring ghosts have been cut from Sweeney Todd, thankfully before they were even filmed. That means Christopher Lee's role no longer exists. The film is now pretty much a straight adaptation of the stage production - at least in terms of story structure and cast of characters. There's no reason given as to why the scenes have been axed, but schedule problems caused by the earlier production hiatus are likely at fault.
- Just Jared has a set of new Ocean's 13 stills. I'll have my up-close-and-personal look at the film's script coming soon...ish. Well, within hours, anyway.
- Only 20 minutes of Death Defying Acts were shown at Cannes, but it has sold very well to distributors worldwide. Lionsgate are my home team, and I hope they'll have it out sharpish.
- Terry Gilliam names The Apartment and Pinocchio as his favourte films in the new Radio Times, and also gives praise to Kung Fu Hustle, Paths of Glory and the paintings of Bruegel. The article isn't on their website, sadly...
- Bob Shaye is sticking to his guns over the whole Peter Jackson/Hobbit issue. Shame he's so utterly wrong.
- Bryan Lee O'Malley has unveiled a single page of Scott Pilgrim's fourth volume. Is the Edgar Wright/Michael Bacall film adaptation still going to happen? I'm starting to doubt it...
- Scorsese, for some reason considered the grand old man of cinema, announced the World Cinema Foundation today. The non-profit's mandate is simple: "to preserve and share films that are no longer shown or available on video". Also on the board of advisers? Variety list Fatih Akin, Souleymane Cisse, Guillermo Del Toro, Stephen Frears, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Abbas Kiarostami, Ermanno Olmi, Cristi Puiu, Walter Salles, Abderrahmane Sissako, Elia Suleiman, Bertrand Tavernier, Wim Wenders and Wong Kar Wai.
- Rob Schmidt's Bad Meat has a vegetarian agenda, and he tells ShockTilYouDrop all about it.
Sacha Baron Cohen's publicist has made it crystal clear that he won't be playing Freddie Mercury in a biopic. The story started in The Daily Mirror and spread like wildfire, and it took VH1 to put a stop to it. The last actor linked to The Barry Bulsara Story aka The Great Pretender aka Freddie! was Johnny Depp, and despite no official denial from his people, don't hold your breath for that one either.
Anybody else in the Sweeney Todd cast look the part?
This year, the Venice film festival is to award Tim Burton the Golden Lion for 'Career Achievement' and hold a special day in his honour. Expect this to be where Sweeney Todd is first unveiled, though obviously not in complete form.... assuming, of course, there still is a Sweeney Todd by then - the production is plagued with delays and problems.
The Venice Fest head honcho is quoted in Variety as saying Burton has "a more insolent pop sensitivity than most new directors today" and is also "less needy of approval than most of the older masters." I agree wholeheartedly.
Congratulations Tim, you've definitely earned it.
Just about every British tabloid is alive with the sound of BS, this morning. Well... I hope so, at least.
Reports pretty much across the board have it that, sadly, Johnny Depp has halted production of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd while his daughter Lily-Rose is sick in hospital. So far, it would seem, they production has had almost two weeks on hiatus, and according to most of these reports, if Depp doesn't return at the end of this week, staff will be fired and the film is likely to be closed down.
I dare say that a temporary shut down is underway, but it seems unlikely that the film will be axed entirely because of this... doesn't it?
Where do your sympathies lie? With Depp? With the hundreds of cast and crew that could end up losing their jobs?
Maybe the curse of Terry Gilliam that supposedly crippled The Man Who Killed Don Quixote will now be reinterpreted as the curse of Johnny Depp.
I've been sent a pretty good scan of the 'Sweeney Todd is shooting' poster, so I thought I'd share it. They're a week into principal photography now, so that's only... oh... about twenty months until we get to see it.
Click on the image above to get a good look at how the credits are... for now, anyway.
According to The Sun (an often inaccurate source despite being the biggest selling daily publication in the UK) Tim Burton has given Sacha Baron Cohen permission to not sing his role as Pirelli in Sweeney Todd but instead rap it. They quote an insider as saying "Any professional singer would struggle so Sacha has been told to go for a rap style. It will be a bit like Jim Broadbent's performance in Moulin Rouge. That won him a BAFTA. Sacha is going to do a fantastic job but he couldn't cut it with the singing. His voice was too low."
Maybe somebody else should have been cast in the role, then?
Alan Rickman has joined the ranks of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd cast as Judge Turpin. This sounds great to me, particularly if he does another of his wonderful Frankie Howerd impersonations. The question now, however, is what part - if any - does Jim Broadbent have? He was previously announced as being onboard, also (it was presumed) as Turpin. Earlier in the year he left the Hairspray movie-of-the-musical-of-the-movie, to be replaced by Christopher Walken and at the time it was assumed his taking a role in Sweeney Todd played some part in this... now, I'm not so sure.
Can anybody shed any light on this? Whatever's going on, I hope Mr. Broadbent is well and that we will be seeing him in Burton's film, or at the very least, some other films very soon.
