Walter Parkes:
Absolutely. I remember (to Logan) you started your
whole process with an almost like academic analysis and study and breakdown of
the original play. I think you became a
scholar of the original…
John Logan: Oh,
those many years ago…
Walter Parkes:
No, because there's such extraordinary invisible work John had to do because no
one wanted to re-invent the Wheeler, at least on a screen-play level... We wanted
to honor, as John said, this amazing piece of work that has only grown in
stature since its inception and, you know, I think it's always thought to be
the most important score of the second part of the 20th century, and it's
such a great story. That was a very long process and there was quite a
long process of trying to find different ways of getting the movie made and
eventually we parted ways with Sam (Mendes) and at that point I remember a
conversation the three of us had and it really was: "Well there are all
these versions of Sweeney Todd that
are going to be hopefully respectable and we'll go out there and put on film
this wonderful piece of work and we'll find its little audience and then
there's this other version and that would be a version with Tim and
Johnny." It's like, suddenly, oh my Lord
it could have a larger cultural impact possibly just because of what they bring
to it, and also the fact there's a kind of perfect correspondence between Tim's
sensibility and what the sensibility of the play itself is so we were lucky
enough to engage in conversations with the various representatives and, yes,
Tim came in. Quite honestly Tim is such
a total auteur that when you make a movie with Tim, you hand the baton to Tim.
John Logan: From
the very beginning the first discussion we had with Tim Burton we talked about
the blood and one of the unforgettable things in the stage show there was the
first stage slitting – you remember this – the blood arching across the stage,
the light hitting it. We talked about
the blood from the very beginning and said it would be dishonest, immoral and
unethical to treat this as anything other than murder and to try and shy away
from the blood.
* * * * * * * *
DreamWorks Pictures and Warner Bros. Pictures Presents a
Parkes/MacDonald and Zanuck Company Production, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, directed by Tim
Burton. Produced by Richard D. Zanuck, Walter Parkes, Laurie
MacDonald and John Logan; Executive Producer Patrick McCormick.
Based on the Broadway musical with music and lyrics by
Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler; originally staged by Harold Prince. From
an adaptation by Christopher Bond, screenplay by John Logan. Johnny Depp and Tim Burton join forces again in a big-screen
adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's award-winning musical thriller Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet
Street…
"Depp stars in the title role as a man unjustly sent to
prison who vows revenge, not only for that cruel punishment, but for the
devastating consequences of what happened to his wife and daughter. When he
returns to reopen his barber shop, Sweeney Todd becomes the Demon Barber of
Fleet Street who 'shaved the faces of gentlemen who never thereafter were heard
of again,'" state press notes. "Joining Depp is Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs.
Lovett, Sweeney's amorous accomplice, who creates diabolical meat pies. The
cast also includes Alan Rickman, who portrays the evil Judge Turpin, who sends
Sweeney to prison, Timothy Spall as the Judge's wicked associate Beadle Bamford
and Sacha Baron Cohen as a rival barber, the flamboyant Signor Adolfo Pirelli."
For limited national release December 21, 2007 and wide
January 11, 2008.
Photos top-bottom: Laurie MacDonald and Walter Parkes (by Francois Duhamel, 2005 Paramount Pictures); John Logan and Walter Parkes (by WireImage.com)
