'Sweeney Todd' Gore Rumors

There have been reports recently that producers have asked Tim Burton to tone down some of the more gory elements of the upcoming Sweeney Todd film in an effort to make it more "family friendly".

According to an article at Cinematical.com, though, these rumors may have been blown out of proportion:

...Variety's Anne Thompson got the real story from DreamWorks on Sunday night. The studio stated its intention has always been to release Sweeney Todd with an R rating. Then, on Monday, Thompson added that neither Paramount/DreamWorks nor Warner Bros. has seen the finished film, that they won't see it until at least the third week in September. It is possible that Warners has seen a lot of clips, some of which are rumored to be making a debut at the Venice Film Festival. By Monday evening, Variety had an article confirming that Paramount/DreamWorks is going wider with its domestic release of the film than originally planned. Instead of opening with a limited run on December 21 then going wide on January 11, Sweeney Todd will now bow on more than 1,500 screens on December 21. Apparently the studio is very happy with what it has seen of the film and thinks it has a very wide appeal, even with the fully intentioned R rating.

More details of the reports can be found on the Cinematical site.