Tim Burton’s Divorce From Disney

Movies

Deadline reports that Tim Burton is done with Disney after his experience making Dumbo. Burton was honored with the Prix award at the Lumiere film festival in Lyon. In a conversation with Deadline, Burton compares Disney to “a horrible big circus” and says Dumbo was somewhat autobiographical. Read some of his comments on Disney here:

“It’s gotten to be very homogenized, very consolidated. There’s less room for different types of things,” he said, adding he would never do a Marvel movie. “I can only deal with one universe, l can’t deal with a multi-universe.”

“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,” he said.

Scrapped concept art Burton did for The Black Cauldron

I think a lot of what he’s saying here is evident from Burton’s Dumbo adaptation. Michael Keaton’s role of V.A. Vandevere and his theme park Dreamland are explicit criticisms of the Disney company. I recall being shocked and exhilarated to see this kind of message in a Disney film! I don’t know if the higher-ups at Disney didn’t catch this or if they just didn’t care. Maybe the film was too far along to change these scenes and Keaton’s role. Burton has a long and complicated history with Disney, and it’s easy to understand why he may harbor some contempt for them. Honestly, I think most of us hold some resentment toward Disney these days. Burton isn’t perfect, and he’s had some misses lately, but he is thoroughly creative, and I think Disney is wrong to burn this bridge.