Depp reunites with Burton and Carter for musical

Johnny Depp will re-teamwith Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter in the big screen adaptation of Sweeney Todd.

Carter, Burton's longtime off-screen partner, has stared in Burton-directed films such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Big Fish and Planet of the Apes.

Carter and Depp starred in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory together and both voiced characters in Burton's animated film The Corpse Bride.

She will play the devious Mrs Lovett in the new film, a role originated onstage by Angela Lansbury, who is a murderess who dispenses of her victims' bodies in meat pies and becomes the girlfriend and accomplice of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, played by Depp.

In most stage productions of the musical, Mrs Lovett has been nearly a decade older than the Demon Barber and is usually someone in her fifties, but Carter and Depp are both in their early forties.

Media reports has British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen joining the cast as rival barber Signor Adolfo Pirelli, but the studio would not confirm whether he'll be part of the film.

Shooting begins early next year for a late 2007 release.