Tim Burton has opened up about why he doesn’t Marvel Cinematic Universe movie for Disney. The MCU started with Iron Man in 2008 and has since expanded to nearly thirty films and several television series inspired by Marvel Comics characters. In 2009, the franchise was acquired by Disney, allowing for much larger budget productions and greater franchise expansion. Since the generational impact on audiences and the hype that the MCU continues to generate, the franchise has attracted many unique actors, writers and directors and has managed to tap into new genres, although some have criticized the formulaic style of many of the content .
Tim Burton started out as an animator and artist and also worked for Disney, where he made several short films (and the Hansel and Gretel TV movie that became an urban legend) before its big screen debut in 1985 with Pee-wee’s great adventure. 1988’s beetle juice
served to introduce Burton’s signature fantasy horror filmmaking style to the public, and from there branched out into different worlds, starting with Gotham City in 1989’s Batman starring Michael Keaton. The well-rounded creator has produced other successful fantasy horror films such as Edward Scissorhands, stop-motion animation movies like corpse bride, sci-fi movies like planet of the apes, musicals like Sweeney Todd, a live-action Netflix series featuring Wednesday, and a live-action version of Disney’s animated classic, stupid. Now Burton explains why his experience with dumbo knocked him out to the MCU.
While speaking with deadline, Burton explained his current stance on working for Disney. After his countless experiences with the entertainment business, especially the most recent with stupid, Burton stated that he related too much to the main character in the live-action remake. The filmmaker remembered the feeling “that I worked in this terrible big circus and had to escape,” and quoted Disney’s “homogenized” state and the MCUs “multi-universe” as reasons why he wouldn’t take an MCU project. See Burton’s full quote below:
“[Disney’s] become very homogenized, very consolidated. There is less room for different kinds of things. I can only deal with one universe, I can’t deal with a multi-universe… My history is that I started there. I was hired and fired there several times during my career. The Thing About Dumbo [2019]That’s why I think my days with Disney are over, I realized I was Dumbo, I was working in this horrible big circus and I had to escape. That film is quite autobiographical on a certain level.”
How Tim Burton’s Batman Inspired Modern Superhero Movies
Although Burton has expressed a veiled distaste for the MCU through his criticism of Disney, he did create his own superhero franchise featuring batman. The film, which was a huge success with critics and financially, spawned an equally acclaimed 1992 sequel, Batman returns. However, Burton’s batman 3 was not green-lit by the studio, which was reportedly turned off from the dark and mature tone of its more violent superhero films due to concerns about marketing the films and merchandise to younger audiences. Based on that experience, Burton’s reluctance to work with a huge, standardized entertainment conglomerate is understandable. But even though you only made two Batman movies, Burton made a huge impact on the superhero genre.
The darkness that is present in Burton’s Batman started a movement that allowed superheroes to appear as positive influences of more than one note on youth. Keaton’s Batman achieved an impressive kill count, showing that there was room for complexity in the often simplified genre. Since the acquisition of Burton batman, that particular hero’s movies have gotten more and more grim, with those of Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight trilogy and the more recent Matt Reeves film, The batter. And despite Burton’s lack of interest in pursuing a project for Disney, in the… MCU or else, be Batman movies influenced the franchise through their grounded and nuanced superhero story.
Source: Deadline
