Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, is a musical by Stephen Sondheim. The musical was adapted to a musical slasher film by Tim Burton in 2007. Read more about the movie here.
(1) It’s a mechanical razor in some of the shots where Sweeney opens it swiftly. Depp requested that the production department create mechanical razors for him because he had difficulty handling the actual ones.
(2) Tim Burton insisted on making the film bloody. Sweeney’s everything being so inside, he felt that the blood was his emotional release.
(3) For his preparation of Adolfo Pirelli, Sasha Baron Cohen hired a personal barber as a consultant on shaving techniques; it took him 16 hours to learn how to handle a razor.
(4) The address on Mrs. Lovett’s shop, number 186, is a reference to the London legend of Sweeney Todd, which places the barber at this very address. Sweeney Todd is a fictitious character who originally appears in the penny dreadful serial The String of Pearls (1846–47). The original story became a part of nineteenth-century melodrama and London legend.
(5) To prepare for the role, Depp recorded demo tapes of himself in West Hollywood working with old friend and music producer Bruce Witkin, to shape is own vocals without a voice coach.
(6) This is the second musical Johnny Depp has starred in, but this is the first one where he actually sings (he was only lip syncing in Cry Baby).
(7) Sweeney Todd and Ed Wood are the only two films in Tim Burton’s directing career with music not composed by Danny Elfman.
(8) Helena Bonham Carter practiced her song whilst practising baking techniques.
(9) The film was shipped to some theatres under the name ‘Skunk’. This was most likely due to the depiction of Todd with the white streak in his hair.
(10) The popular actor, Jamie Campbell Bower, starred as Anthony Hope, the doe-eyed standard-bearer for dewy heroism in Tim Burton’s 2007 production of Sweeney Todd.
