Entertainment News
2006-06-14
Tim Burton sets
sights on Johnny Depp for Sweeney Todd
Paramount
Pictures chairman Brad Grey has decided to exchange one
big-budget Tim Burton movie project for ano
Paramount
Pictures chairman Brad Grey has decided to exchange one
big-budget Tim Burton movie project for another. Grey has
sent Believe It or Not, based on exploits of adventurer and oddities
collector Robert Ripley, back into development, while
Stacey Snider, chief of Paramount's DreamWorks studio, is
putting Sweeney Todd on the fast track with
Burton at the helm.
DreamWorks will
now need to assemble and cast that movie, which is being
adapted by out screenwriter John Logan (The
Aviator) from the Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical. The
stage production of Sweeney Todd won John Doyle
the Tony award on Sunday night for best director of a
musical. Burton already is talking with actor Johnny
Depp about taking the lead role in the feature film
version as the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Paramount
sources said.
Burton and
producers Richard Zanuck, Sean Daniel, and Jim Jacks had
been fighting the battle of the budget bulge on
Believe, starring Jim Carrey. But Grey refused to
give the project a green light for production until the
ambitious project fell into the $150 million range,
copresident of production Brad Weston confirmed.
Burton, whose
previous credits include Edward Scissorhands, Batman, and Big Fish, already had scouted locations in China and devoted
months to preproduction in London for Believe.
He is returning from London to meet with Carrey. Grey made
the decision to rework the script and visual effects
sequences with the budget in mind, Weston said. "In a
world where we wanted to do more work on the script,
this seemed to make more sense," he said.
Believe marks the second Carrey project to fall
apart in recent months. He also had been slated to star in
Jay Roach's Used Guys with Ben Stiller for 20th
Century Fox. Paramount executives insist that Believe
will go forward in another year. "We love this project
and look forward to making it with Tim and Jim—just
later than originally planned," Paramount production
president Gail Berman said. (Sheigh Crabtree and Anne
Thompson, Reuters)
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