Tim Burton has cut off any chance of working with Marvel with some brutal comments on the “homogenized” state of the franchise.
One of the few directors out there who has been able to lean into his own visual style for his entire career, he’s played a crucial part in making superhero movies what they are today with his 1989 Batman movie. While he was a landmark director for DC, don’t expect him anywhere near Marvel Studios.
Speaking to Deadline on the state of Disney and their clear desire to keep franchises front and center ahead of original new properties, Burton called it all very “homogenized”. Far from the creative den which saw him rise from Disney’s animation department to become a master of his own style, he’s clearly not feeling much love for the mouse house.
“It’s gotten to be 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.”
Burton had little positive to say on his time working with Disney for 2019’s live-action Dumbo remake, calling it a “big horrible circus he needed to escape”. Sounds like an excellent time.
“My history is that I started out there. 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.”
Burton has previously expressed a lack of interest in Marvel, with him taking the side of DC in the great comic debate. He’s a man of clear vision, something which definitely clashes with what is often a template style done at Marvel.
Burton’s next film won’t be one as a director, with him serving as executive producer for Beetlejuice 2.