Johnny Depp Will Sing,
Slaughter for Tim Burton
Stephen Sondheim’s legendary musical Sweeney Todd is enjoying a successful revival on Broadway, although the show—about a barber who gets vengeance on his enemies by cutting their throats and selling the corpses for meat-pie filling—has had a difficult road to the big screen. (Romeo feels like he’s been writing about a potential Sweeney movie since the invention of talkies.) The latest stab at it comes from director Tim Burton, who can certainly handle the more ghoulish aspects of the musical. Burton, perhaps not surprisingly, wants his frequent leading man Johnny Depp in the title role, while gay screenwriter John Logan (The Aviator) will adapt the show’s book. Here’s hoping that Depp’s voice does justice to Sondheim’s great songs—and that he won’t wear those creepy Willy Wonka teeth again.
John Stamos Sounds The Wedding March
He may have gone through a very public breakup with Rebecca Romijn—a pin-up girl for lipstick lesbians if there ever was one—but John Stamos isn’t letting his romantically troubled past get in the way of work. He’s starring as a gay events coordinator in The Wedding March, a new TV movie that will air on A&E. Produced by openly gay moguls Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Chicago), March sees Stamos’ character inadvertently set off a nationwide strike by lesbian and gay couples angry that they can’t get married. Ironically, the movie is being made in Canada, where same-sex couples are legally welcome to tie the knot. Happy to take advantage of that fact was The Wedding March’s director, Jim Fall (Trick, The Lizzie McGuire Movie), who wed his boyfriend, Juan King, during the shoot.
No, the Other Kind of Camp
Get ready to pitch a tent for the documentary that’s been a big hit on the gay and lesbian film-festival circuit. Kirk Marcolina and Larry Grimaldi’s Camp Out tells the story of the Naming Project Camp at Bay Lake in Minnesota, which was designed to address the needs of young gay Christians in the hopes of keeping them in the church and preventing teen suicides sparked by homophobia. The funny, moving film isn’t exactly Meatballs, but its portrayal of adolescents who are striving to balance their religious upbringing with their budding sexuality is delighting audiences everywhere. Don’t be surprised to see Camp Out in a theater near you, even if it doesn’t feature penguins, ballroom dancing, spelling bees, or global warming.
DeepInsideHollywood@qsyndicate.com