Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
- The original script for Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was written over a decade before production finally began in 2007.
- During the filming of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Johnny Depp improvised one of the most famous lines in the movie.
- Eagle-eyed viewers have noticed a hidden easter egg referencing Tim Burton's previous film in the background of the opening scene.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 2007 American musical horror film directed by Tim Burton, based on Stephen Sondheim's 1979 Broadway musical. Johnny Depp stars as Benjamin Barker, a barber falsely imprisoned for 15 years by the corrupt Judge Turpin, played by Alan Rickman, who coveted Barker's wife. Returning to London under the alias Sweeney Todd, the barber reopens his shop above Mrs.
Lovett's pie shop โ played by Helena Bonham Carter โ and begins murdering his customers by slitting their throats in his barber's chair, their bodies falling through a trapdoor into the bakery below where Mrs. Lovett incorporates them into her meat pies. Tim Burton's direction transformed Sondheim's stage musical into a visually stunning gothic horror film, draining London of virtually all color except for the arterial red of blood, which appears in shocking, vivid spurts.
Johnny Depp, who had never sung professionally, delivered Sondheim's demanding score with a raw, punk-influenced vocal quality that was more theatrical rage than polished Broadway. Sweeney Todd won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction and earned $152 million worldwide on a $50 million budget.
