Burton: "Studios Feared 'Sweeney Todd'"

Tim Burton recalls that studio bosses were fearful of investing in his film, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, an ultraviolent, hyper-stylized movie-musical with no "pop songs," fearing that it would be a disaster. Even with Johnny Depp set to play the lead role, studio executives in Hollywood were cautious, since they felt Depp did not have enough experience, especially to tackle such difficult music as featured in Stephen Sondheim's opera-like musical. But in the end, Burton praised Hollywood for eventually allowing him to make such an ambitious motion picture.

The director tells British film magazine Empire, "What's weird is that they (the studios) are afraid of musicals anyway, but an R-rated musical with blood that's not based on pop songs, it's like, 'F**k!'

"Then it was like, 'Um, can he (Depp) sing?' Nobody knew. I didn't know. So that's the joke of the whole thing. In a way, that's the surreal nature of Hollywood, so you have to love it for that because on paper, it's like the worst idea of all time!"

Sweeney Todd did not dominate the box-office on its opening weekend in the United States. It's opening weekend box office, starting on Friday, December 21st, 2007, was only $9,300,805 (opening in 1,249 theaters, $7,446 average per theater), less than one-fifth of the film's cost of $50 million. But since then, the film has grossed an estimated $38,472,000 (as of January 6th, 2008) in the United States alone, and global box office results and DVD sales should more than make up for the underwhelming opening weekend.

You can read more on the box office results of Sweeney Todd and many more films at BoxOfficeMojo.com.

(world entertainment news)

NBR: "Sweeney Todd" Among 10 Best Films of 2007; Burton Wins Best Director

Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has been named among the top ten films of the year by the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.

"2007 was an extremely exciting and challenging year for the NBR in determining the winners in the various categories," said NBR president Annie Schulhof in a release. "We screened 282 films and the diversity of these narratives is reflected in our 2007 Ten Best Films."

Eventually, No Country For Old Men by the Coen brothers won Best Film of 2007. But Sweeney Todd was recognized as one of the ten best of the year, and Burton took home the prize for Best Director.

Sweeney Todd will be released in U.S. theaters on December 21st, 2007.

New "Sweeney Todd" Wide Release Date: December 21st!

DreamWorks and Paramount have decided to give Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd a wide release in the United States for Christmas. The original wide release date was January 11th, 2008, assuming that the film didn't have the potential to be a commercial success. But some studio executives saw some clips of the upcoming movie, and realized the film has much broader appeal than they assumed before (despite it being a violent musical). Variety wrote, "The hope is that "Sweeney" will be the sort of signature role for Depp that Captain Jack Sparrow in Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean" franchise was." However, the article stated that, "at the same time, DreamWorks and Paramount aren't likely to go out with "Sweeney." The studios aren't planning on releasing the film in more than 1,500 theaters in the United States on opening weekend.