BURTON TO FILM 'SWEENEY TODD'

By Matthew Gilbert

From The Boston Globe, 02.02.1992, City Edition

SWEENEY SCISSORHANDS: In the unspecified future, Tim Burton will direct the film version of "Sweeney Todd," Stephen Sondheim's eight-Tony-winning musical. Burton, busy at the moment finishing Batman Returns, will collaborate with Caroline Thompson, who wrote Edward Scissorhands. . . . Sondheim, by the way, wrote songs for an untitled musical that Rob Reiner has in the works. He's also screen-adapting his "Into the Woods" for the Jim Henson Organization, and including some new songs. That's three musicals for the screen--could this be a trend in the making?

SET UP: Europa, Europa director Agnieszka Holland is set to direct a screen version of Frances Hodgson Burnett's classic children's book "The Secret Garden." . . . Hector Babenco--director of Ironweed, Kiss of the Spider Woman and the new At Play in the Fields of the Lord--is set to direct the adaptation of D. M. Thomas' popular novel "The White Hotel." . . . Mike Nichols is set to direct Wolf, a romantic thriller rumored to star Jack Nicholson and Michelle Pfeiffer. . . . Julianne Moore plays that acerbic real-estate broker in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (you know, the one who cautions, "Never let an attractive woman occupy a power position in your home"). Well, she's also making her fourth film, The Gun in Betty Lou's Handbag, directed by Alan Moyle (Pump Up the Volume). The comedy also stars Penelope Ann Miller, Alfre Woodard and Eric Thal. . . . Richard Gere's about to be in therapy! Well, therapy movies: He's a psychiatrist in Final Analysis (opening this week), and he's Lena Olin's manic-depressive patient in Mr. Jones.

STRAIGHT OUT OF SUNDANCE: The Sundance Film Festival is famous for shedding critical light on such movies as sex, lies and videotape, Straight Out of Brooklyn, Metropolitan and Paris Is Burning. So you might want to clip and save these prizes from this year's edition. The Grand Jury Prize in drama went to Alexandre Rockwell's black-and-white comedy In the Soup, about a down-on-his-luck filmmaker. The film also won a special jury prize for actor Seymour Cassel. The Audience Award for drama went to The Waterdance set in a paraplegic ward, it stars Eric Stoltz and was codirected by Neal Jimenez and Michael Steinberg. The Grand Jury Prize for documentary was split between Errol Morris' A Brief History of Time (derived from the Stephen Hawking best-seller) and Finding Christa, by Camille Billops and James Hatch. Morris also won the Filmmakers' Trophy for documentary. The Filmmakers' Trophy for drama, meanwhile, went to Zebrahead, Anthony Drazan's story of interracial romance in Detroit.

'SWEET' SMELL OF SUCCESS: The Museum of Fine Arts will look back through the work of Mike Leigh, the British director whose Life Is Sweet was named best film of 1991 by the National Society of Film Critics. Running Fridays from Feb. 21 to March 27, the series will recap Leigh's career chronologically, including the films he's made for the BBC. . . . We'll always have Cambridge: The Brattle plans to celebrate the 50th birthday of Casablanca with a spanking new print and an exclusive two-week run, beginning May 1. Meanwhile, the Brattle will show Architecture of Doom the weekend of Feb. 21. The documentary details the aesthetics of the Third Reich.