There’s a lot of excitement about Tim Burton’s next movie, an adaptation of the gruesome murder musical Sweeney Todd starring Johnny Depp. Well, everyone but the studio funding it is excited that is. It seems Warner Brothers wants it to be gruesome… but not too gruesome. SlashFilm has picked up a story from The Daily Mail which says that the WB is pressuring Burton to make massive cuts to his movie in order to water it down to a PG-13.

The Daily Mail story says, “The thing is, the studio really likes the film and they want to make it accessible to as big an audience as possible - which means stemming the blood flow. But that’s a bit difficult for a story involving a guy who gets high slitting throats.”

It’s the same old song and dance. Screw artistic integrity, let’s make a movie that grandmas and teenagers can buy a ticket to see. Meanwhile, somewhere out there, Uwe Boll is being allowed to make anything he wants. This is Tim Burton after all, he’s not some idiot first-time director fresh in off the turnip truck. The guy is a proven commodity, you’d think Warners would have a little faith in him. Apparently all their interested in is making a movie that’ll play broad, screw whether or not it’s any good. Of course if they wanted that, then maybe they shouldn’t have commissioned a movie about a barber who runs around slitting throats. Or, maybe they shouldn’t have hired Tim Burton to make it. Dark and disturbed is sort of his thing.