Tim Burton Slams Disney And Is Done Making Their Movies
Tim Burton has announced that he is done making movies with Disney and says his experience made him feel like he needed to escape.
Tim Burton has been working with Disney for many years but it appears the director may finally be done with the House of Mouse. Speaking at the Lumière Festival in Lyon, Burton said that his 2019 live-action adaptation Dumbo would likely be the last time he worked with Disney, saying “I think my days with Disney are done, I realized that I was Dumbo, that I was working in this horrible big circus and I needed to escape.” In other words, Disney is just too big for Burton to want to work with them anymore.
Tim Burton started his career at Disney, working with them as an animator. He would eventually go on to make some of his best movies with Disney, including Ed Wood, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and Frankenweenie. He would also make some not-so-great films with them such as the live-action Alice in Wonderland and the aforementioned live-action Dumbo.
Tim Burton also mentioned he would never do a Marvel movie, which makes sense considering that’s owned by Disney too. However, Burton has been quite influential in the superhero film world, as his 1989 film Batman helped to steer future on-screen iterations of the character into a grittier, darker tone. In fact, it was so popular that Michael Keaton’s Batman from the movie is bringing brought back into the DCEU in The Flash.
It’s probably best to not hold your breath for Tim Burton to return to that world either, as he specifically said that he “can only deal with one universe, I can’t deal with a multi-universe,” in reference to working with Disney on a Marvel movie. Considering the DCEU is its own kind of multiversal comic-book film project, it seems unlikely Burton would be too keen to jump into that either. In fact, according to the Deadline report, Burton really doesn’t have any film projects in the works at the moment.
Of course, that doesn’t mean we have a drought of Tim Burton projects, as we’ll see be getting his Netflix series Wednesday about the Addams family character Wednesday Addams. Wednesday will follow her years as a student as she learns to master her psychic powers and solve a mystery involving her parents. Jenna Ortega stars in the lead role with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzmán, Isaac Ordonez, Fred Armisen, Christina Ricci, and Gwendoline Christie also starring.
While Tim Burton made it clear that he wouldn’t be involved with any Disney projects in the near future, the jury’s still out on his involvement in the upcoming Beetlejuice sequel being developed at Brad Pitt’s Plan B production studio. During a masterclass, Burton indicated that he would not be involved in the reboot but then he backtracked a bit on his statement saying “nothing is out of the question.”
While no one is necessarily burning for Tim Burton to return to Disney for more Dumbo and Alice in Wonderland movies, it would certainly be a shame if he wasn’t involved in Beetlejuice 2 in some capacity. Beetlejuice is definitely one of the classic Burton movies and it wouldn’t be the same without his guidance and Michael Keaton’s portrayal of the character. We’ll just have to wait and see if Burton is playing coy about his Beetlejuice 2 involvement but until then you can check out Wednesday when it hits Netflix on November 23.
