Warner Bros wants Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street director Tim Burton to “butcher” his own film, according to a report from the Daily Mail. Apparently the early footage from the film was so extremely bloody that the studio executives have become a tad squeamish and are requesting the film to be re-cut. In its present form the film would merit an R-Rating, but the studio would prefer it to be released with a PG-13 MPAA tag.
“Tim’s not happy that the studio is asking for so many cuts to the cutting, as it were,” someone connected to the film told the Daily Mail. “The thing is, the studio really likes the film and they want to make it accessible to as big an audience as possible - which means stemming the blood flow. But that’s a bit difficult for a story involving a guy who gets high slitting throats.”
In the film/play, Todd’s victims are sat in a mechanical chair, where they are subject to a slice across their throats, before a trap door in the floor opens and they slide down a chute into the lair of Todd’s mistress, Mrs Lovett (played by Helena Bonham Carter), who uses the dead bodies to make her meat pies. One scene that is said to have particularly bothered the studio bosses involved a “ten-year-old boy cutting up body parts, which were then thrown into a meat grinder and turned into mince.”
August 26th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Isn’t the subject matter of Sweeney Todd SUPPOSED to be disturbing? Plus an R rating isn’t going to hurt the film’s success. I mean Johnny Depp’s involvement already guarantees a large audience.
August 26th, 2007 at 6:08 pm
I’m not sure that the people over at Warner Brothers realise that a movie like this isn’t supposed to be for children…
Honestly, a plot with such promise is deserved of a film which will be able to carry the story with proper use of every technique available to the cast and crew. They shouldn’t be stifled into cutting it into a form which won’t portray the characters and ambience to full effect.
I for one would be far more likely to see this on a big screen and then buy the DVD (If it lived up to the hype and the DVD was a Tim Burton cut) if it was R-Rated.
With the PG-13 tag i’d be more likely to hire it out when i needed something to watch when i’m looking after kids.
I’m rather disappointed right now.
August 26th, 2007 at 6:26 pm
Another ploy by WB to make more money which will possibly destroy what sounds like an amazing motion picture. I’ve yet to find any other answer for why execs would want teenagers watching a movie about a guy slitting throats. WB is like the unfair parent who won’t let us young adults have anything to ourselves!
August 26th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
I have no sympathy for Warner execs in this instance. Why don’t they just admit that they don’t have a clue as to whatever it is they greenlight?
August 26th, 2007 at 7:35 pm
Why directors like Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam don’t start their own production studios is beyond me.
August 26th, 2007 at 7:43 pm
I totally agree with hk, they have such amazing talent, why be pushed around?
August 26th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
Obviously, Warner wishes to keep Burton in that ever-certain PG-13 realm, which is a proven, risk-free move for them. But, for Burton and his fans, it’s a tragedy since such a move will clearly suppress what could be his most intriguing work in years.
August 27th, 2007 at 8:30 am
Wow…does Warner Bros really need to abuse Burton/Depp’s popularity amongst the 12-16 year old girls currently residing in Hot Topic so much as to start butchering adult themed films which feature the two. Tisk Tisk Tisk Warner Bros.
August 31st, 2007 at 3:10 pm
The original Broadway play starring Angela Landsbury and George Hearn has those exact same bloody scenes acted out (the throats being slashed and the ten year old boy grinding up meat). Anyone who is familiar with that play (or rather, anyone who is going to be involved with the movie aka Warner Bros. SHOULD have become famliar with the nature of the original play) knows this. It is Tim Burton’s adaptation and vision of the story and it looks like it is coming across very well considering the fact that it is an R-rated movie. The play itself would have been an R-rating had they had that ability. The original DVD version that I have sitting right in front of me (the same Broadway production) has such words in the description as “a macabre tale” “black humor and madness” and “a musical thriller.” That sounds like and R-rating to me, however the original musical was not rated because it is a Broadway show made in 1982.
The most surprising thing, however, is that the DVD I own is packaged and redistributed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Inc. (2004)
So the very same people who are redistributing the ORIGINAL Broadway musical of Sweeney Todd, the version that it appears Tim Burton is actually being inspired by, are making a big to-do about scenes in his film that are too disturbing? Isn’t the original musical disturbing also?
I am not saying that Burton’s film will be identical to that of the original musical I have and have owned for quite some time now. However, I am saying that Burton seems to be attempting to stay true to the original story (told in the original musical). He is using Sondheim’s score and the scenes that were discussed as being disturbing are ones I am familiar with from the Broadway musical I own produced in 1982. If Warner Bros. could reidstribute the original musical, why are they having a problem with Burton’s vision?
Also, making a movie PG-13 is not going to stop people from filling in the blanks as to what is happening. They can make up their own R-rated version. They can also get the original version of the musical…it won’t have Johnny Depp in it or be by Tim Burton but it will be gruesome…and it will be distributed by Warner Bros.
September 3rd, 2007 at 7:15 am
Yes, it is unfortunate that WB is stepping in, but at the same time I can’t help but feel disappointed with Tim Burton for being so unimaginative with the subject matter. I’ve seen the original broadway show (in DVD form) and I would have rated it very far from “R”.
People argue that the subject matter alone should warrant an “R” and extremely gory scenes, when it simply isn’t true. Since when does murder (even multiple murder) in a movie ever warrant an “R”? The rating comes from how the director decides to portray that violence. I don’t see a reason why Burton would feel the only way is to give a nice close up of the victim’s throat being sliced, unfolding on itself, and blood shooting across the room. Not necessary. (In context it almost wouldn’t make sense for the character of Sweeney to make such a mess of it.)
We have enough bloody gorefests (Though, none I admit, set to music….well, there’s Reefer Madness, a comedy). I’d much rather have a musical thriller that didn’t go for cheap thrills.
September 9th, 2007 at 3:21 am
Tim Burton is by far the most compelling and intruing film director the world has ever known. 95% of all of his films are spectacular. And right now I think that Tim Burton shouldnt have to deal w/ warnerbros crud.If Tim Burton wants to make a remake of the gothic and mercyless musical SWEENEY TODD I think it would be very retarted to give the rating of a film which is about an insane barber who brutaly murdures his victims and gives their left overs to his(also insane) misstress who grinds the flesh into(human)meatpie which they sell very succesfully without anyone noing there secret, being rated PG-13. If you dont rate this film R why not rate some kids films NC-17, eh? GOD!!! SMELL THE JAVA WARNER BROS! SWEENY TODD + PG-13 rating=dumb SWEENY TODD+R rating=SMART
December 31st, 2007 at 11:22 pm
i really don’t understand why this movie is rated R…..People need to remember this is a ‘folk tale.’ In actuality, EVERYBODY is supposed to know the story already…..
The movie is portrayed as a musical….The blood is almost humorously fake….
I mean, in Pirates of the Caribbean, there is a head severed on a stake….People are killed in Harry Potter….Beowulf….There are plenty of movies that have violence in them….
Kids aged 13 are exposed to video games where they are killing people….
Is this movie rated R because the killing does not take place with a gun?
I mean, I can understand why some kids shouldn’t be able to see it…..but it is humorous……in a morbid way, but it still is very comical…..They make fun of the people while they kill them….the movie is so full of irony…..
It really is a great piece of work…..
and like I said earlier, it is a folk tale….Tim Burton did not write it….He used basically the same script as the original musical….The setting is a tad bit more elaborate…..
But who puts an R rating on a musical??????
I really beileve it deserved PG-13…..
There are only 2 cuss words in the whole movie!
There is no nudity!
just violence….and what kid isn’t exposed to that already?
September 2nd, 2008 at 1:30 pm
The ORIGINAL BROADWAY PRODUCTION running some 550+ shows starred Angela Langsbury and LEN CARIOU. I saw it on PBS yeasr ago and can’t bring myself to watch/buy what everyone thinks is the original Broadway play. I would like to see the real original production put out on DVD, especially now that a movie has been made. There’s also a very old movie of Sweeney Todd; maybe a “Sweeney Todd Compleat DVD Collection” could be put out with all versions. Now that would be SWEET!