Depp starrer Sweeney Todd director asked to cut down the gore

The set of Johnny Depp starrer Sweeney Todd seems to have been turned into a gruesome slaughterhouse.

London, August 26 : The set of Johnny Depp starrer 'Sweeney Todd' seems to have been turned into a gruesome slaughterhouse.

Award-winning director Tim Burton has been asked to tone down the horrid scenes in his film, in which Depp plays the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, Sweeney Todd.

Studio executives became a bit squeamish when they saw shocking footage of Depp slitting the throats of his customers in the movie, based on Stephen Sondheim's stage musical.

According to sources, during filming at Pinewood studios, the prosthetic look-alike limbs were so hideously realistic that some of the crew became queasy and had to take fresh air breaks.

Those on set were further disgusted because there were heaps and heaps of sliced-up 'corpses', along with several spare 'necks' for the reason that Burton might want to shoot several takes of the same throat-cutting scene.

In the movie, Todd's victims are seated in a mechanical chair; their throats are cut and as Johnny flips a switch, the floor opens and they fall down a channel into the den of Todd's mistress, Mrs Lovett, played by Helena Bonham Carter.

One scene that principally disturbed the studio bosses was when they saw a ten-year-old boy cutting up body parts, which were then thrown into a meat grinder and turned into mince.

"Tim's not happy that the studio is asking for so many cuts to the cutting, as it were," the Daily Mail quoted an insider, as saying.

"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," the insider added.

The movie also stars Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, Sacha Baron Cohen, Laura Michelle Kelly and Peter Bowles.

ANI