November
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Sweeney Hits Holiday Previews
AICN's Harry Knowles has seen Sweeney Todd SEVERAL TIMES. Geez. And he loves it.
EW has Sweeney on its holiday preview cover. Steve Daly, who does a feature and Q & A with Depp, saw the movie too. Tellingly, for some reason, EW's Dave Karger does not pick Sweeney for picture, director or actor. Hmmm.
Daly's piece points out that Burton does not leave out any of the musical numbers is limited by the film's interlocking musical numbers, which carry much of the musical's plot and emotion. "It's not like there's other stuff to cut into it to replace anything," Burton says. That must have been tough. If Helena Bonham Carter struggles to get through her first big song, Mrs. Lovett's "The Worst Pies in London," for example, they can't just cut it out. Apparently they do cut some of the songs.
UPDATE: Sylviane Gold goes into more detail on the music in the NYT. This is making me nervous: adapting any musical for the screen is a tough at best. Recent successful efforts have been accomplished by musical sophisticates such as Chicago's Rob Marshall and Bill Condon, Dreamgirls' Condon and Hairspray's Zadan and Meron. In this case the folks involved, while gifted in many ways, are musical neophytes tackling the complexities of Stephen Sondheim. 
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Knowles is notoriously untrustworthy when it comes to his "famed" rave film reviews so everyone should approach this one for Sweeney with severe caution...
Wait until more advance word come out about it
Posted by: Sergio | November 03, 2007 at 08:01 AM
Daly seems to have his facts mixed up. Several musical numbers were cut from the film. Oops...
Posted by: Robert | November 04, 2007 at 07:41 AM
interesting. I went back and looked at what Daly wrote, and I see where I got that idea: "a remarkably faithful film adaptation in which most of the action unfolds in song," and, "It's made up of interlocking musical sequences." And he quotes Burton thus: "It's not like there's other stuff to cut into it to replace anything." Upon closer perusal, this does leave open the possibility that numbers have been cut.
Posted by: anne thompson | November 04, 2007 at 10:20 AM
Anne. I've a quick question. Why is that Johnny Depp's last "Pirate" movie, "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," was allowed to run a whopping 168 minutes, while "Sweeney Todd," a film based on a major 2 1/2 hour musical stage epic, with tons of music, reportedly runs only 108 minutes on film? Doesn't make sense to me. Of course they cut the Sondheim score, even though it is arguably the star of the piece. His music is its raison d'etre. Thanks. -Jan
Posted by: Jan | November 04, 2007 at 11:49 AM
The Pirate films are pre-sold commercial blockbusters laden with one overwrought VFX scene after another. The more the merrier. My guess is that in the editing room Tim Burton played to Sweeney Todd's strengths, and the determination was made to keep it tight. They were not making an art film. They're selling it as a Johnny Depp/Tim Burton R-rated horror film and are underplaying the music.
Posted by: anne thompson | November 04, 2007 at 03:04 PM