"Sweeney Todd" HD DVD Cancelled

Paramount has announced that it will cancel the release of its upcoming HD DVD releases, including Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. This resulted from Blu-Ray DVDs eventually becoming the victor in the Blu-Ray vs. HD showdown, when Toshiba declared that it would cancel the production of HD DVDs in favor of Blu-Ray. Paramount has yet to announce when it will begin making Blu-Ray DVDs, so it's unlikely that Sweeney Todd will be released on Blu-Ray, at this point.

The HD DVD of Todd was supposed to be released in North America on April 1st, 2008. Luckily, the HD version was not supposed to have any more extra features than the 2-Disc DVD version. Both the region 1 standard single-disc and 2-Disc editions of the horror-musical will still be available to purchase on April 1st.

You can find out more information about the DVDs of Sweeney Todd on this news blog, or by checking out these two links on Amazon.com:

Single-Disc Edition

Two-Disc Edition



P.S. On a bit of unrelated news, this news blog is now officially and exactly three years old!

"Sweeney Todd" DVD Information and Pictures!

Official information for the three Region 1 DVD (including HD DVD) versions of Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street has been released! It will be available on April 1st, 2008, states Paramount Home Entertainment. The following information about DVD details and special features is categorized by the three DVD versions:


Single-Disc:

• Featurette: Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd

Two-Disc Special Edition:

• Featurettes:
  • Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd
  • Sweeney Todd is Alive: The Real History of the Demon Barber
  • Musical Mayhem: Sondheim's Sweeney Todd
  • Sweeney's London
  • The Making of Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
  • Grand Guignol: A Theatrical Tradition
  • Designs for a Demon Barber
  • A Bloody Business
  • The Razor's Refrain
• Sweeney Todd Press Conference, November 2007
• Moviefone Unscripted with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp
• Theatrical Trailer
• Photo Gallery

HD DVD 2-Disc Special Edition:

• 1080P Widescreen
• English Dolby True HD 5.1 Surround
• English, French and Spanish Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Surround
• English, French and Spanish subtitles
• Featurettes:
  • Burton + Depp + Carter = Todd
  • Sweeney Todd is Alive: The Real History of the Demon Barber
  • Musical Mayhem: Sondheim's Sweeney Todd
  • Sweeney's London
  • The Making of Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
  • Grand Guignol: A Theatrical Tradition
  • Designs for a Demon Barber
  • A Bloody Business
  • The Razor's Refrain
• Sweeney Todd Press Conference, November 2007
• Moviefone Unscripted with Tim Burton and Johnny Depp
• Theatrical Trailer
• Photo Gallery

The following images have been provided by IGN.com. Click on the pictures for larger versions. As of yet, there are no images of the HD DVD version's box. This edition will likely be one of the last HD DVD movies released, as the format recently lost the war against Blu-ray:


The Single-Disc Version:

Two-Disc Special Edition:

"Sweeney Todd" DVD Release Date(?)

As of now, Paramount has said that it will release Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street on DVD and HD DVD on April 1st, 2008.

A simple, one-disc version of the film will be released that day, as well as a two-disc collector's edition packed with bonus materials, both on DVD and HD DVD. No box artwork or special features information has been released yet.



However, Paramount has not responded to Toshiba's decision to discontinue the production of HD DVDs, in favor of its rival technology, Blu-ray. Whether this will affect the release date of the Todd DVD has yet to be known.

Burton "Devastated" by "Ripley's" Problems

The Los Angeles Times reported that Tim Burton felt "pretty devastated" by the failure of the development of a film he was going to work on last year, Ripley's Believe It or Not!. Burton had already begun planning locations for shooting the film in China, when Paramount Pictures shut down pre-production due to budget issues. Ripley's was to be a biographical movie ("bio-pic") on Robert Ripley, a cartoonist and filmmaker who traveled the world looking for bizarre oddities and curiosities. The film was to star Jim Carrey in the title role, and reportedly Gong Li, as well. "I know it's a business," Burton said of Ripley's with a frustrated tone of voice. "But for those of us working on the film, you get excited, and it's an art form. They should feel lucky that you treat it like an art form." Shortly after, however, a new project from Paramount came up for Mr. Burton: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Ripley's may still happen someday, but likely not with Burton (since he will be working on Alice in Wonderland and a feature-length, stop-motion animated version of Frankenweenie with Disney in the next couple of years).

The article goes on to talk about Sweeney Todd, but beware of SPOILERS! Approach with caution!: Article.

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.