How ridiculous is this?
Warner Bros. Studio hires Tim Burton (a director known for the creepy tone he brings to even fairy tale stories) to direct a movie based on the stage play Sweeney Todd, which is about a barber who slits the throats of his customers so that his mistress can grind them up into meat pies. Burton makes the movie, assuming obviously with that for a story that the movie will be rated R.
Now the word it that the studio has come back and wants the movie trimmed for a PG-13 rating.
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Predictably, Tim Burton is not happy about this.
If you to shelled out the money to produce a movie as described above, wouldn’t you assume that based on the story and the director (who I think is a great choice for this film) that the final result would not be a PG-13 movie? Would you even want this movie to be PG-13?
It’s a gruesome story and should be portrayed so on the screen. One of the major hallmarks of a PG-13 movie is the lack of blood in scenes where there should be plenty (the major offender in this category are gunfights where hundreds of shots are fired, people drop like flies and there’s not a drop of blood to be seen).
How they expect one of the bloodiest ways to kill someone (throat slitting) followed by grinding body parts into meat pies to be “cleansed” to a PG-13 rating is beyond me. Plus, this may be off topic, but considering how civilians have been murdered by masked terrorists using a similar method in Iraq, the last thing I want to see is the gruesome aspect of this type of death made less shocking in a film.
Source: /Film
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12 Comments
I agree totally, the film should be at least a 15’s (or R in america).
Also, dumbing down the subject matter wouldnt go down too well with the harsher critics out there i’m sure!
Rule: Don’t watch it in the cinema, buy it unrated on DVD. Or better: Wait another 6 months for the unrated Director’s Cut and THEN buy it on DVD.
ZAR.
Not really the point, Zar…
Removing the gore from a film about a murderous barber and his wife who turns them into meat pies is kind of like removing the dinosaurs from ‘Jurassic Park’.
Just plain ridiculous.
Kane,
Yup. And Zar, I know what you’re saying, but I’m getting sick to death of having to wait for a DVD to get the “real” version of a movie whether it’s uncut, unrated, the director’s cut or whatever.
Vic
this is indeed ridiculous
i hope burton beats the odds and wins this fight
one possibilty for the rationale behind this is that now that depp is known as as Captain Jack Sparrow from a PG13 franchise
they are trying to attract kids who went to see the pirate films
i am not saying its good logic
but i bet it was discussed somewhere along the food chain
Gary,
I’m sure you’ve hit the nail on the head with your theory and if that’s the case it’s just plain STUPID. Talk about mismatching an audience with a film…
Vic
Tim Burton and Johnny Depp work great together. I can’t think of a movied they have done that I didn’t like.
I also LOVED “300″.
WB originally pushed Zach Schneider to make “300″ a PG-13 movie. He refused and eventually WB caved.
This movie has major potential. I can’t imagine that “300″ would have gone over as well as a PG-13.
I hope the same happens here.
one possibilty for the rationale behind this is that now that depp is known as as Captain Jack Sparrow from a PG13 franchise
they are trying to attract kids who went to see the pirate films
i am not saying its good logic
but i bet it was discussed somewhere along the food chain
actually Johnny Depp was in Secret Window about a year ago I think and I believe that was rated R which is prett ridiculous because the story was kind of harsh but there was some blood and thats about it….no gore or anything.
I cant say that I’m unhappy that it might be rated PG-13 I mean I myself am 14 and was planning on going to see it with my friend who will be turning 17 shortly, but yeah if there going to cut stuff out of it to make it PG-13 I would be extremly angry. I dont really see how ratings should affect people’s attraction to a movie though thats just stupid “oh well it’s rated PG-13! Nope dont want to see that one!” doesnt make any sense check out the story line not the rateing!
-Abbie
I wholeheartedly agree with Burton here. He’s the director after all, shouldn’t his vision be a reality? Depp and Burton have done some of their best work together, and this movie should be no exception. And anyway, when it comes down to it, if the execs had tried to change another of Depp’s movies, “Blow”, to a PG-13 rating, what were they going to do, make him smuggle bikes into the US? And bottom line, even if they are trying to make Sweeney Todd more marketable for teens, it doesn’t make a difference to Burton, who did not have the vision of this movie for them to see.
I think that Sweeney Todd is a great movie but they should atleast meet half way at ma15+ and not cut anything out because that would be such a waste!
Maddy, you’re confusing the US rating system (which is what the article is about) with the system here in Australia.
In the US, the PG-13 and R would fall either side of our MA15+. For instance, R is not the strict 18+ rating we understand it to be – they call that NC-17.
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