Tim Burton has admitted it is unlikely that he will return to Disney as a director, saying that his experience working for the company was similar to that of the character Dumbo, who is trapped in "this horrible big circus."
The filmmaker made his remarks while attending the Lumiere Festival in France over the weekend, where he received the honorary Prix Lumière award. Speaking to the press on Saturday, Burton said Disney was predominantly focused on its Marvel, Pixar, and Stars Wars franchises.
"It's gotten to be very homogenized, very consolidated. There's less room for different types of things," he said, according to Deadline, adding he would never do a Marvel movie. "I can only deal with one universe, l can't deal with a multi-universe."
Burton kickstarted his career working for Disney as a junior animator for films like 1981's "The Fox and the Hound" and "Tron." He went on to direct a number of other movies including "A Nightmare Before Christmas" (through Touchstone) in 1993, "James and the Giant Peach" (1996) as well as "Alice in Wonderland" (2010), among other titles. His most recent Disney film was the 2019 live-action reboot of "Dumbo."
"My history is that I started out there," he said of working with Disney. "I was hired and fired like several times throughout my career there. The thing about 'Dumbo,' is that's why 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. That movie is quite autobiographical at a certain level," he said.
Burton also addressed his possible involvement in a reboot of his 1988 cult classic, "Beetlejuice," saying "nothing is out of the question."
"I only know if I'm making a film when I'm actually on the set shooting," he said. Deadline confirmed that "Beetlejuice 2" was in development earlier this year.
"I try to go back to the root of everything," Burton continued. "It springs from a seed and then it grows, rather than out of these statements," he said. "I am working on ideas and things but it's all very early days. We'll see how it goes. How's that for a none-answer?"
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.