A couple days ago we reported that Warner Bros executives were apparently unhappy with the extremely gory early footage from Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. And now distributor Dreamworks have announced that they are releasing the film wide on Christmas (December 21st). Is this new announcement part of a PR counter attack? Well, I certainly question the timing.
The original plan was to give the film a limited release on the 21st, before going wide on January 11th, 2008. Variety claims that DreamWorks executives now believe the film has mass appeal after seeing a few clips. Hmmmm may-be this does gel with our earlier report that the studio wanted the film cut for a PG-13 rating in order to appeal to a larger audience? Or may-be not… The Variety report claims that the current plan calls for a R-Rating, which means the wide release would likely be limited to 1,500 screens.
New Sweeney Todd Poster via: The Hot Blog
November 14th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
I know SWEENY TODD, THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET, pretty well. It IS a gory topic…but the gore is no worse than SAW or HALLOWEEN or any of that other stuff. IF the studio wanted a PG film, THIS was not the vehicle. Which makews me ask, again: Do studio execs READ the material they’ve spent millions of dollars to buy? I’m really starting to think they don’t.
Much as I love this show…and I do…I’m not sure Christmas is the time to release it…but if that is the only way to maintain the intergity of the piece…then I’m for it.