DreamWorks Studios announced that Johnny Depp and Tim Burtons SWEENEY TODD, based on the award-winning Stephen Sondheim musical thriller, is set to begin production early next year for a late 2007 release.
In the co-production with Warner Bros., Depp will star as the titular Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald will partner with Richard Zanuck and John Logan to produce the screenplay adaptation by Logan (THE AVIATOR). Paramount will distribute for DreamWorks domestically and Warner Bros. internationally.
The Broadway production with Sondheim's music and lyrics and a book by Hugh Wheeler based on the play by Christopher Bond, opened in 1979 and won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical. A highly acclaimed revival is now playing in New York.
The story follows a wrongfully imprisoned barber in Victorian England who sets out to seek revenge on the judge who imprisoned him. The plot is foreshadowed in the first lines of the opening number: "Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd./His skin was pale and his eye was odd./He shaved the faces of gentlemen/Who never thereafter were heard of again."
Burton is also developing the Paramount production of RIPLEY'S BELIEVE IT OR NOT.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
