It sounds like 2019’s Dumbo wasn’t the happiest of projects for director Tim Burton. More on the live-action film, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, below…
Tim Burton’s career has owed rather a lot to the House Of Mouse over the years. Beginning his filmmaking journey as an animator at Disney from 1981-1986, he was reportedly fired after his live-action short, Frankenweenie, was judged too scary for kids to watch before therapy gained mainstream appeal. The studio would later produce a feature-length stop-motion version of Burton’s story in 2012.
“I’ve been at Disney on and off,” he told Variety in a new interview ahead of the release of his new film, bio-exorcist sequel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, with Warner Bros. “During my first time there as an animator and designer, it went through maybe three different regimes even at that point. Each regime comes in with its own thing, so it’s almost like you’re dealing with a different studio each time.”
By the sounds of it, though, it doesn’t seem like Burton’s too keen on some of the more recent developments in the industry. His experience making 2019’s Dumbo, which debuted to mixed reviews and became one of the few commercial misfires in the studio’s recent animation-to-live-action pipeline, almost had a career-ending effect on one of the most distinct voices in American cinema.
“Honestly, after Dumbo, I really didn’t know,” Burton told Variety. “I thought that could have been it, really. I could have retired, or become… Well, I wouldn’t have become an animator again, that’s over.”
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His salvation, however, seems to have come from an unlikely place: Netflix. His Addams Family spin-off, Wednesday, united him with the star of his newest movie – Jenna Ortega – and the move to TV seems to have acted as an artistic reset.
“That reconnected me to making things,” he said. “We went off to Romania and it felt like it was a creative health camp. It went so well.”
Of course, the industry of the 80s and 90s which Burton dominated is a far cry from the Hollywood of 2024. But though it’s tempting to see the town’s current case of sequel-itis as a uniquely 21st century phenomenon, according to Burton, the writing’s been on the wall for a while, particularly at Disney.
“Going back to the 80s, you had the animation building that was all designed for artists. By 1986, I was the last artist in there because all the artists were kicked out and put in a warehouse in Glendale and it was all then overtaken by the execs,” he said. “I saw this transition of things a long time ago. And now, it’s bigger franchises, less little things. I don’t like it but it is what it is.”
His latest franchise project, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, arrives in UK cinemas on 6th September. Let’s hope someone gives him the money for something new soon after…
