Sweeney Todd titles

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sweenytitles.jpg

The moody (and primarily CG) opening titles to Tim Burton’s latest film, Sweeney Todd, have been posted exclusively on Broadway World.com

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  • Chuck R.

    Very Cool! (Especially the gears.)

    A new Tim Burton movie is always a big event, but…Is it just me, or is there something sad about a title sequence for a Burton film without Danny Elfman’s name in the credits?

  • amid

    I didn’t realize ketchup played such an important role in the story of Sweeney Todd. Didn’t CG animators lick the problem of animating realistic blood sometime in the early-90s?

  • http://floodsofmemory.livejournal.com Hunter

    The transition is nice, it has a good flow, and it’ll be interesting to see what they do w/ Sweeney Tood on film (I really hope they don’t totally destroy it). Is it just me though, or does the blood look a bit ketchupy and coagulated in many of the shots?

  • http://utopiamoment.ca Jack Ruttan

    Yeah, it looked like mercury in some other shots. It was nice when it was boiling in the oven, but could have been more like tendrils when it hit the water. Certainly wouldn’t float on the surface. Of course, a big budget movie could have done some tests! (not that I’ve done anything like that.)

    And with the rooftops, for a minute I thought I was watching “Mary Poppins.”

  • Chuck R.

    C’mon Amid. Surely a man of your modernistic sensibilities can appreciate artistic license. Fake-looking blood is a Hollywood tradition. Hell, even Kurosawa has silly-looking blood in his films.

  • Sid

    The H.J. Heinz Company could use this as a Christmas season commercial. It makes me hungry.

  • Franklin

    Well, let’s face it Danny Elfman is NO Stephen Sondheim. Not even in the same league. Elfman isn’t a very competent composer. Sondheim is a genius, and this is his best score.

    I love how Burton and Ferretti have made the opening titles cg, but worked hard to make it look like stop motion.

  • Chuck R.

    I stand by Elfman’s talent. He’s creative and quirky, and provides a perfect sonic complement to Burton’s visual style. He’s long overdue for an Oscar. Not to take anything away from Sondheim, the music in the opening sounds great. Confession: Ed Wood is my favorite Burton film. No Elfman there either. snif.

  • Justin

    I like that the blood is not real. It goes with the style that Tim Burton is often noted for, and making it more realistic would probably make the titles look more like a common horror film than a quirky creepy Tim Burton movie. The blood has an interesting consistency.

    I am excited to see this.

  • http://stephansolarchive.blogspot.com Stephan

    What a surprising cast for a Burton film… I do like to see Sacha Baron ( Borat ) in it :)

  • Blasko

    Ugh — I thought that was awful! Hard to find the words to describe something that’s just visually downright ugly and unpleasant to look at that is, of course, trying to be ugly and unpleasant. But it just doesn’t work for me at all, and it seems like he’s treading on similar (under)ground as he did with the opening titles of Batman Returns. And those were a lot better.

    Doesn’t look anything like stop-motion to me either.

  • http://www.sandwichbag.blogspot.com Elliot Cowan

    Oh I think the look of that blood was a stylistic choice…

  • Alex

    I agree with Eliott. The whole thing is stylized. It’s not meant to look “real”. To me it feels like a story book (penny dreadful) rendition of the relationship between the Barber shop and the Bakery. It has an awesome “grand guignol” feel to it. Since they did away with “The Ballad of Sweeney Todd”, this works just as well as an opener. If you have seen the musical, the ballad serves a similar purpose.

  • http://www.sandwichbag.blogspot.com Elliot Cowan

    I agree with Alex.

  • http://utopiamoment.ca Jack Ruttan

    Thank goodness they kept the original orchestrator, Johnathan Tunick. I’m still skeptical how much music will remain in this “musical,” because the trailer seemed to be at pains to make it seem anything but that.

    Gotta get back on topic: wish they would have done this with stop motion puppets, if only to preserve Angela Lansbury’s definitive and irreplacable performance as Mrs. Lovett.