You may recall that a few years ago, Disney released a live action remake of the 1941 animated film Dumbo. Directed by Tim Burton of Beetlejuice fame (or any number of films, really), the remake wasn’t particularly well received, even by the standards of Disney’s various remakes over the decade and change.
Disney and Burton have been longtime collaborators for decades — outside of Nightmare, his remake for Alice in Wonderland arguably helped start Disney’s remake obsession after it made over a billion dollars and won two Academy Awards. Even with that, though, the live action Dumbo that may have ultimately brought that relationship to an end. At Lyon’s Lumière Festival, where he received the Prix Lumière award for his contribution to the film industry over the decades, Burton rather plainly said that he believes he’s done with Disney after the remake. “I realised that I was Dumbo, that I was working in this horrible big circus and I needed to escape,” he said. “That movie is quite autobiographical at a certain level.”
And in case you were wondering if the man would change his tune for the chance to direct an MCU or Star Wars movie (what, from either franchise, could possibly be directed by Tim Burton, of all people?), that’s a hard no. He called Disney’s overall franchise focus “very homogenized, very consolidated. There’s less room for different types of things. “I can only deal with one universe, l can’t deal with a multi-universe.”
He may be done with Disney, but Burton isn’t hard up for work. In a few weeks, his Addams Family series Wednesday will premiere on Netflix and will be his first TV series he’s worked on in over 20 years. He also may still have an active relationship with fellow longtime collaborator Warner Bros., or could turn his eye towards another company like Blumhouse for future projects.
[via Deadline]
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