Johnny Depp to play Sweeney Todd

Depp and Burton collaborated on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Johnny Depp and director Tim Burton are to reunite for a film version of the Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd.

Depp will play Todd, the legendary London barber who murdered his customers by slitting their throats.

The original musical was a Broadway hit in 1979, winning eight Tony awards. A revival was launched in the UK in 2004.

Depp and Burton have worked together several times in the past, producing films such as Edward Scissorhands, Sleepy Hollow and Ed Wood.

Their adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory made more than $470m (£248m) worldwide last year.

Burton plans to start shooting Sweeney Todd early in 2007, and it is due in cinemas later next year.

Depp, 43, is expected to do his own singing, said a spokesperson for film studio Dreamworks, which is co-producing Sweeney Todd with Warner Brothers.

The actor's most recent film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, has been this year's biggest hit, taking $400m (£211m) at the US box office.