I'd almost forgotten that Nicolas Cage was once slated to star as Superman in the Tim Burton-directed Superman Lives, but now I want to be reminded of every bizarre detail. With Zack Snyder's Man of Steel looking like it will give Warner's Superman franchise the dramatic heft and substance of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy, The Venture Bros. director Jon Schnepp wants to take us back to a much cheesier time in Superman's history with a documentary about what he says could have been "the weirdest Superman movie ever made." more »
Tim Burton had brought up the idea of Frankenweenie long before he finally was given the go-ahead. Development for the stop motion animated film dates back to late 2005, but didn't finally come out until recently. He went on to direct Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland and Dark Shadows before his latest time in the director's chair. But the hold-off with Frankenweenie begs a follow-up question: What other ideas did the Scissorhands filmmaker ever have that didn't make it to the big screen? Apparently the answer is Michael Jackson.
more »
Also in Monday morning's round-up of news briefs: The deadline looms for the 19th Screen Actors Guild Awards consideration. Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter receive London Fest honors; And a Chinese-Japan row over uninhabited islands spills into the Tokyo International Film Festival.
more »
Hollywood veteran Martin Landau earned an Oscar in his first collaboration with Tim Burton, 1994's Ed Wood, and for Burton's latest and most personal picture, Frankenweenie, the filmmaker cast his erstwhile Bela Lugosi as the eccentric but inspirational Mr. Rzykruski — the science teacher who nurtures young Victor Frankenstein's budding talents and encourages him to forge his own path. It's a fitting role for the 84-year-old Landau, who lit up as he discussed Frankenweenie and his longtime parallel career as an acting coach to the likes of Jack Nicholson, Anjelica Huston, and many more Hollywood greats under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.
more »
The unshakeable bond between a shy nerd from the ‘burbs and his faithful dog is the heart of Frankenweenie, the black and white stop motion picture (in theaters today) Tim Burton refers to as a “memory piece.” Drawn from his own childhood memories of growing up in Burbank, California, it’s an ode to the kooky neighborhood kids and adults Burton knew, the monster movies that shaped him, and, as Burton told Movieline with a smile, his way of teaching kids about one of the toughest facts of life: Death.
more »
It’s too bad that Frankenweenie comes at this late-middle stage of Tim Burton’s career when the director, now more brand than auteur, has lost his older fans, because it’s exactly the kind of funny, creepy, poignant film many of us have been waiting for Burton to make since Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s probably too early to peg Frankenweenie as Burton’s comeback vehicle, but it’s certainly the director’s best movie in twenty years.
more »
Sweeping into Austin to present Fantastic Fest’s opening night film Frankenweenie in his signature tinted glasses, director Tim Burton extolled the virtues of one of his most favored art forms: Stop-motion animation. “It’s such a beautiful, rarified medium,” said Burton, who returns to many of his roots — stop motion, black and white film, monster movies, macabre kids tales, and his own 1984 short film of the same name, about a boy who brings his beloved dog back from the grave — in the feature-length October release.
more »
Any re-hash of Beetlejuice will have to include Michael Keaton, Tim Burton who directed the 1988 original that also starred Alec Baldwin, Geena Davis, Winona Ryder and Catherine O'Hara has said. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter writer Seth Grahame-Smith, who is currently penning a script for the Beetlejuice sequel said in May that he's spoken with both Burton and Keaton about the proposed follow-up.
more »
They say it is good to get a child a pet because its mortality will acclimate the youngster to the concept of death. Clearly Tim Burton never saw it that way.
more »
Tim Burton's Frankenweenie may have to wait until early October before it hits screens, but movie fans will have a chance to get an early look at images from the stop-motion animated feature during an exhibition tour beginning next week in Barcelona, Spain that continues on to seven countries including the U.S.
more »
This weekend sees the release of Dark Shadows, marking the eighth time director Tim Burton has teamed with Johnny Depp, his second-favorite performer on screen. (He no doubt frequently has to tell Helena Bonham Carter as much.) So natural is their pairing that we have come to expect a certain level of quality and/or box-office performance from their combined efforts, and an announcement of a new Burton title has generally come to carry the promise of a Depp appearance. Although Hollywood has long brought us such fruitful and lucrative actor/director relationships — from both Cary Grant and James Stewart's collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock to Robert De Niro's legendary work with Martin Scorsese — consider nine other long-term pairings packing a little (or a lot) less luster.
more »
There are enough terrific, elegant old-style Tim Burton touches in Dark Shadows that, now and then, you might be fooled into thinking the once-mad genius had finally come back to his senses: A young girl gazes dreamily through the window of a train slipping through the New England countryside, the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin” serving as an aural curtain for her reverie; a wispy ghost woman floats toward the waiting arms of a giant chandelier, her hair and tattered skirt winding around its crystals like jellyfish tendrils; a secret button reveals a passageway whose opening is framed by mechanical ocean waves and a cadre of cast-iron wolves raising their snouts to the moon in a hearty salute. Parts of Dark Shadows look lovely. So what happened to the story?
more »
Johnny Depp and Tim Burton have crossed the celluloid path on eight films over a little more than two decades. But apparently that long collaboration is not without a little pain. And apparently this time it was all about the... nails?
more »
Leave it to Tim Burton to make even the gruesomest scenarios utterly heart-wrenching; I started welling up during the first 30 seconds of the new trailer for Frankenweenie, the black and white stop-motion animation adaptation of Burton's well-loved short of the same name. Watch it and shed a tear for the childhood pets you once loved.
more »
From Meryl Streep to Martin Scorsese and awards season juggernaut The Artist, Hollywood's finest came out in full force Sunday in London for the 2012 BAFTA Awards. (Get the full list of BAFTA winners here.) Hit the jump to see who dazzled on the red carpet and celebrated backstage at the last big hurrah before the Oscars.
more »
