Tim Burton

Tim Burton (birthname: Timothy Walter Burton) is one of the few genuinely signature commercial moviemakers in recent Hollywood history, creating a body of work famed for its combination of weirdly and comically exaggerated depictions of horror Gothic that appeal across age groups, even if the majority of his movies aren’t written by him and are adaptations from the work of authors ranging from Stephen Sondheim, Lewis Carroll and Roald Dahl to Ransom Riggs and Washington Irving. Burton made nearly a dozen short films as a young person and art student at Cal Arts, including the cult short film Frankenweenie (1984), before he signed up as a director-for-hire on his feature debut, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) starring Paul Reubens as his iconic Pee-wee character.

Burton, though, established his distinct artistic identity with his second directorial feature, Beetlejuice (1988), starring Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Geena Davis, and Alec Baldwin, and delivering nearly $75 million for Warner Bros. Burton waited 36 years to make the sequel for Warner Bros., Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024), reuniting the original’s cast (minus Baldwin and the scandalized Jeffrey Jones) with new co-star Jenna Ortega, and premiering as opening night film of the Venice Film Festival.

Tim Burton had one of his biggest commercial successes as director of the first Batman movie launching a long, enduring franchise with Batman (1989), starring Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger, and Billy Dee Williams, earning an epic global gross of over $411 million (on $48 million costs), securing a sequel that stands apart as perhaps the most cartoonish and over-the-top Batman movie ever with Batman Returns (1992), with new cast members Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Christopher Walken, and grossing half of the original’s return with $267 million worldwide.

Burton’s third feature was his first as director and story writer (with screenwriter Caroline Thompson) and one of his most distinctive signature movies (as well as Burton’s personal favorite), as well as his first of many projects starring Johnny Depp, Edward Scissorhands (1990), co-starring Winona Ryder, Dianne Wiest, Anthony Michael Hall, Kathy Baker, Vincent Price, and Alan Arkin, grossing $86 million for 20^th Century Fox.

Burton has usually worked with Warner Bros., but his first of a few projects with Disney was his eccentric 1950s-set movie as director/producer, Ed Wood (1994), the black-and-white biopic written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski and starring Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia Arquette, Jeffrey Jones, and Bill Murray, losing money for Disney/Touchstone Pictures but premiering at the Cannes Film Festival.

Burton returned to Warner Bros. for his outlandish sci-fi epic spoof as director/producer and uncredited co-writer (with writer Jonathan Gems), Mars Attacks! (1996), starring Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michael J. Fox, Rod Steiger, Tom Jones, Lukas Haas, Natalie Portman, Jim Brown, Lisa Marie, and Sylvia Sidney, but proving to be a box-office dud ($101 million returns on $100 million costs).

Tim Burton was hired as a replacement director on Paramount Pictures’ $100-million budgeted Sleepy Hollow (1999), based on Washington Irving’s tale and co-starring Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci, Miranda Richardson, and Michael Gambon, and grossing a mild $207 million global gross. Burton was again a director-for-hire on 20^th Century Fox’s long-delayed remake, Planet of the Apes (2001), with Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Clarke Duncan, Kris Kristofferson, and Paul Giamatti, delivering a good $362 million gross against $100 million costs.

Burton again took over a project begun by others (including writer John August and director Steven Spielberg) with the fantasy, Big Fish (2003), based on Daniel Wallace’s 1998 Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions and starring Ewan McGregor, Albert Finney, Billy Crudup, Jessica Lange, Helena Bonham Carter, Marion Cotillard, Steve Buscemi, and Danny DeVito, grossing over $123 million for Columbia Pictures/Sony Pictures Releasing. Burton directed his first musical movie and his second collaboration with August on a darkly tinged Roald Dahl adaptation, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), starring Johnny Depp, Freddy Highmore, David Kelly, Carter, and Christopher Lee, and grossing $476 million globally for Warner Bros.

Tim Burton’s first self-launched project in nearly a decade was his first stop-motion animated movie as director (and third as producer), Corpse Bride (2005), co-directed by Mike Johnson and co-written by John August, Caroline Thompson, and Pamela Pettler, with the voices of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Tracey Ullman, Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney, Richard E. Grant, Christopher Lee, and delivering a fair $118 million box office for Warner Bros. Burton took on his second musical movie (replacing director Sam Mendes) as director of a faithful and acclaimed big-screen version of Stephen Sondheim’s macabre musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), starring Johnny Depp (in one of his few musical roles), Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall, and Sacha Baron Cohen, earning a solid $153.4 global gross for distributors DreamWorks Pictures/Warner Bros. and producers DreamWorks Pictures/Paramount Pictures.

Burton packed with Disney again for his direction of the 3D live-action, big-budget ($200 million) version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland (2010), co-starring Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover, Alan Rickman, Stephen Fry, Michael Sheen, and Timothy Spall, delivering a huge $1.02 billion worldwide gross. Burton was convinced by star Johnny Depp to direct the big-screen version of the cult TV series, Dark Shadows (2012), co-starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Carter, Eva Green, Jackie Earle Haley, Jonny Lee Miller, and Chloe Grace Moretz, but failed to return strong reviews or a profit for distributors Warner Bros. and Roadshow Entertainment.

Tim Burton as director/producer finally made his feature version of his 1984 short film, Frankenweenie (2012), as a 3D stop-motion animated movie for Disney, again written by Burton’s regular screenwriting collaborator, John August (based on Burton’s story), and featuring the voices of Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, and Winona Ryder, and which premiered at the Fantastic Fest before grossing $81.5 million. Burton shifted in a relatively naturalistic direction for his well-liked version of screenwriters Scott Alexander’s and Larry Karaszewski’s biopic of artist Margaret Keane, Big Eyes (2014), co-starring Globe-winning Amy Adams (as Keane) and Christoph Waltz, with Danny Huston, Jason Schwartzman, and Terence Stamp, and returning a good $29.3 million box office for distributor The Weinstein Company (against $10 million costs).

Burton opted next to direct an ambitious screen version of Ransom Riggs’ 2011 novel, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016), adapted by screenwriter Jane Goldman and starring Eva Green, Chris O’Dowd, Asa Butterfield, Allison Janney, Rupert Everett, Terence Stamp, Judi Dench, and Samuel L. Jackson, garnering good reviews and better box office, with a $296.5 million return for distributor 20^th Century Fox. Burton was hired as a director by Disney for what was his third remake project, a live-action adaptation of Walt Disney’s 1941 animated movie Dumbo (2019), starring Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Eva Green, and Alan Arkin, with a somewhat disappointing box office of $353 million against $170 million costs.

Tim Burton has worked as a producer on several notable features, including two excellent and memorable stop-motion animated films directed by animation maestro Henry Selick: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)—for which Burton wrote the story–and James and the Giant Peach (1996) for Disney. Burton was also producer only on director-writer Adam Resnick’s fantasy comedy for Touchstone Pictures/Disney, Cabin Boy (1994); the Warner Bros. sequel Batman Forever (1995), directed by Joel Schumacher and co-starring Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, and Nicole Kidman; animation director Shane Acker’s sci-fi 9 (2009), for Focus Features, with the voices of Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Crispin Glover, and Martin Landau; director/producer Timur Bekmambetov’s horror/fantasy history based on Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012), with Benjamin Walker, Dominic Cooper, Anthony Mackie, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and released by 20^th Century Fox.