From 'Beetlejuice' to 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' a Tim Burton Career Retrospective

In this episode of 'Need Some Introduction,' host Victor returns after a busy hiatus to delve into the review of the new movie 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,' and provides a comprehensive retrospective of Tim Burton's illustrious career. Victor discusses Burton's early work including 'Pee Wee's Big Adventure' and 'Beetlejuice,' his mainstream break with 'Batman,' and later films such as 'Edward Scissorhands,' 'Sweeney Todd,' and 'Alice in Wonderland.' The episode covers Burton's hit and miss projects, his unique gothic aesthetic, and his fluctuating success both critically and financially throughout his extensive career. Tune in for an in-depth analysis of one of Hollywood's most idiosyncratic directors.

00:00 Introduction and Personal Updates

00:56 Upcoming Movie Reviews and Tim Burton Retrospective

02:15 Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Review

12:33 Tim Burton's Career Overview

15:51 Early Career and Pee Wee's Big Adventure

20:09 Beetlejuice Success and Batman Ambitions

31:02 Burton's Personal Touch in Edward Scissorhands

33:53 The Darker Side of Batman Returns

36:47 The Nightmare Before Christmas Phenomenon

38:32 Ed Wood: A Beautiful Flop

39:43 Mars Attacks: A Messy Homage

42:10 Sleepy Hollow: Gothic Aesthetics

43:57 Planet of the Apes: A Generic Misstep

45:23 Big Fish: Emotional Storytelling

46:13 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: CGI Overload

48:46 Sweeney Todd: A Grim Musical

50:24 Alice in Wonderland: Post-Avatar Disappointment

52:01 Dark Shadows and Frankenweenie

54:00 Big Eyes: A Smaller Scale Success

54:58 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: A CGI Failure

55:40 Dumbo: A Forgettable Reimagining

57:00 Wednesday Addams and Beetlejuice Sequel

58:06 Conclusion: Burton's Legacy and Future

Episode Transcript

Victor (00:00):
Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Need Some Introduction.
I'm your host, Victor, and I knowI've been away for a few weeks between
babysitting my daughter, who had no camp,getting ready for back to school, having
relatives from out of town visiting,just regular work commitments, my wedding
anniversary, a holiday, And convenientlymy boiler exploding in my basement,

(00:21):
which led to a couple of days of cleanup.
So it's been eventful on myend, but apologies for not
getting out all those episodes.
I had so many good intentions to getso many episodes out, but I have been
watching some movies and some series alongthe way and trying to come up with a way
to cover many of these topics at once.
And this is going to be a very busy month.
Between September, October, thisis the launch of the new TV season.

(00:43):
And a lot of films have justpremiered at film festivals.
There will be a film festival nearmy hometown in Montclair, New Jersey,
that I will probably be attendingand covering here in some way.
So many topics to comein the upcoming months.
But to keep things relativelyfocused for this month, I want to
talk about the number one movie inthe land, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice.

(01:04):
I'll be reviewing that movie.
No spoilers, I don't think.
I'm going to get into anyspoilers here, by the way.
There's really not a movie you can spoil.
And that'll be a relatively short review,followed by a career retrospective
of the career of Tim Burton.
A very long and a very prolific career.
And Beetlejuice Beetlejuice justpremiered this past weekend with over
a hundred million dollars in the US.

(01:26):
I'll still be having a summerbox office recap for anybody
who's curious about that.
I've started to record it already.
And this is the beginning of the fallseason rather than the summer itself.
But I had just to have my boxoffice prognostication cap on, I
had predicted the film would openwith a little over 100 million.
It topped 110 million in theUS, but surprisingly is tracking

(01:48):
much less than I thought.
I thought the appeal would be, let'ssay 30 or 40 percent larger in the US.
So maybe a final box officein the US around 300.
And overseas, at least 200.
Looks like we are going to topthat 300 million gross in the U.
S., but not even getclose to 200 overseas.
Which is to say that Tim Burtonin general, we'll get into a
recap of his career, has hadmore of an appeal in the U.

(02:09):
S.
than he has internationally, whichis not to say that he's not had some
massive successes globally as well.
So to kick things off, a briefreview of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
It's interesting to see Burtoncoming back to this franchise
now 36 years after the original.
And really surprising that theyhad never been able to successfully
launch a sequel to this film.

(02:30):
Yes, Burton has been very busy fora very long time, but he has had
lulls in his career where you couldimagine that a Beetlejuice sequel
would have rejuvenated his career.
career a little bit, or at least beena better fit given some of those films
he produced over that period of time.
Like Dark Shadows, for example,a perfect time when he could have
been doing this sequel instead.
And not dissimilarly, we're goingthrough a 10 year resurrection to Michael

(02:55):
Keaton's career, a career that jumped intohyperdrive exactly following Beetlejuice.
And then of course, Batman itself,also with Tim Burton directing.
But you can imagine that that careerrejuvenation would have come even sooner
if there had been a Beetlejuice sequel inthe early 2000s, let's say, for example.
So surprising it's taken this long,and given that, it's kind of surprising
that this is such a messy film.

(03:17):
There are so many plots and somany characters in this film.
Not only do we have.
Most of the original cast comingtogether, Winona Ryder is back as Lydia,
but Catherine O'Hara is back as Delia.
Jeffrey Jones as the father isinterestingly absent here from the film,
although the character still exists.
I won't even get into details of that.
He dies and then is in the afterlife.

(03:38):
So they entertainingly are able tokeep the character in the film without
bringing the actor back, who hashad some very unsavory experiences.
Criminal accusations inthe past decade or so.
So look them up on yourown if you're curious.
And of course, Michael Keatonas Beetlejuice is back.
And as Lydia's daughter, we have thisgeneration's most famous scream queen,

(03:59):
Jenna Ortega, who worked on Wednesday,the Wednesday Adams Netflix series,
hugely successful with Tim Burton,who directed most of those episodes
and also was an executive producer.
But that's not all there is adoom teen romance subplot, which
feels like something right out of.
The Wednesday Addams Series, or even fromsomething like his adaptation of Miss

(04:19):
Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
And in many ways, this reallyfeels like Burton is coming back
to some of his familiar motifsand some of his design fixations.
And in so many ways, it feels likea summation of his career, and maybe
that is why it feels so special.
convoluted in its plotting and so manySide stories so many side stories which
do all come together at the end So I dogive the film credit for really going

(04:43):
on in 10 different directions at thesame time We're introduced to lydia who
is now a celebrity medium on tv We veryearly on find this character a monica
played by monica belushi tim burton'slatest stunning Very much of a type by
the way latest girlfriend Which he doesnormally cast in his films, by the way.

(05:03):
It's kind of a tradition with him as well.
Who has resurrected herself andreassembled herself in a very
entertaining scene very early in the film.
But how does this tie in withthe rest of the plot of the film?
It honestly does not fora very, very long time.
And there are many side stories.
There is this tension between Lydia andher daughter, the Jenna Ortega character,

(05:26):
because she thinks her mother's a fraud.
Her mom has made a career, a verysuccessful career, of being able to
communicate with the dead, but yetcan't communicate with her father.
who died on some Amazonian expedition,and yet Lydia has never been able
to communicate with with him.
Lydia is dating her producer,played by Justin Theroux.
Very entertaining, butvery inconsequential.

(05:48):
There is a detective in this noirish sideline, story investigating the
Monica Bellucci character who is a soulsucker, so can kill the actual dead,
so they are dead dead, Eddie says.
And because she had been romanticallyinvolved with Beetlejuice in the past,
this leads him to investigate Beetlejuice.
Beetlejuice, meanwhile, is gettinginvolved with what's happening

(06:10):
in the land of the living, likehe did in the original film.
And if this seems like a lot ofplots all introduced very early on
those aren't really spoilers, by theway This is all introduced within
the first few minutes of the film.
It really is.
This script is all over the place thisisn't the first time that Burton has
done this and Part of the reason thatthis feels really like a summation of
his career is in that way as well I'veheard people complain that this is a very

(06:34):
convoluted plot but as if Mars attack,which was a flop at the time but has
been reclaimed as a bit of a masterpiece.
I disagree We'll get into the ranking ofhis films later on but think about how
many characters and how many storylinesare there all Competing for attention
jumping from one part of the planet toanother compared to that This is very

(06:56):
streamlined But that's not the onlycase as well a film that I very much do
like and I think was underappreciatedactually despised in the Day is the
Batman Returns sequel And I absolutelylove that film, primarily because of
the incredible, the incredibly chargedchemistry between Michael Keaton and
Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman character.
But that is not a neat script at all.

(07:16):
We have Penguin there too, oftentimes justbarely intersecting with the main plot.
And of course, Christopher Walken's,evil billionaire character, which
once again is just another villain,yet another villain in a film full of
villains, which is to say that havinga messy script is not necessarily
unique to this new Beetlejuice film.
And to be honest, it doesall tie together at the end.

(07:37):
A lot of these characters who arehonestly throw away by the time we get
to the end, literally in some points,the, these whole entire storylines
are tossed away, like with a punchlineand very entertainingly, by the way.
But still seems seems unnecessary bythe end of the film, which is a pretty
tight hour 45, well under two hours.
So slightly longer than Beetlejuice.

(07:58):
But Beetlejuice had a very simpleplot when you consider it now,
especially compared to this one.
And even with those, all of thoseadditional plots, it's as if you
had streamlined this storylinedown to only one of these.
Main plot lines this film would nothave even filled out anywhere near
one and a half hours Perhaps that'swhy they've added all these other
tangential characters, but in theend, none of this really matters.

(08:18):
This is fan service Do you loveBurton's career in general?
Do you love Beetlejuice?
Did you grow up watching Beetlejuice?
You will be very happy with this.
Is there any kind ofcharacter development?
Yes, there is and Jenna Ortega'scharacter Astrid is well fleshed
out here, but as I mentioned,this is really cobbling together a
bunch of fixations of Tim Burton's.

(08:41):
So of course we have the sequel, we havethe Beetlejuice character back again,
We have a beautiful and, honestly,inconsequential, but very funny,
extended homage to Black Sabbath, notthe musicians, the movie from Mario,
by Mario Bava, this black and whitein Italian sequence of the film, which
is there only for him to pay homage toblack and white horror films, something

(09:02):
that he's done in the past, of course.
And it almost feels likea capstone to a career.
Burton has mentioned that he wascompletely burned out on making
Hollywood movies after the failure ofDumbo, which actually made some money.
We'll get into that once again in thebreakdown, in the career breakdown, but
more so the requirements from Disney.
And he just wasn't passionateabout the material.

(09:25):
And it feels like here, the mostpositive thing I could say about
the film is that it really doesfeel like he's reclaiming what he.
enjoyed about the film as before andsome of that is just throwing in a
character because she's his girlfriendand she looks great or having an
homage to Italian horror moviesbecause he loves those horror movies.
So all that is to say that the morevested you are in the whole entire

(09:48):
Tim Burton persona and his careerand his aesthetics, obviously, the
more you're going to enjoy this.
If you're a huge Beetlejuice fan, unlikeBeetlejuice, which I'll get into a mini
review of that when we cover his career.
Impress me in a rewatch now at howefficient it is at the world building
at introducing us to this world.
You honestly could go into this film andmaybe just watch it like if you're just

(10:11):
a general Ortega fan and be like, wow,that was weird and pretty funny and have
no idea what the rules of this world are.
It's just cobbled together skits andit could still be very entertaining
in that way, but it really doesn'tfeel like this is an entry point.
For folks, it really feels like thisis more fan service for Burton's career
in general, and of course specificallythe Beetlejuice film itself, which

(10:34):
I guess has crossed over in thegenerations to become a full on cult
hit, but a huge cult hit at that.
So all of these individual sideplot lines are entertaining.
The stakes are well defined.
It all is driving towards a zanywedding ceremony, even bigger.
That's one thing that's verymuch the case here in this film.

(10:55):
This is massive filmmaking comparedto the first Beetlejuice film.
And another compliment I'llpay to all of this is that he
obviously is using a lot of CGI.
But when we get to the career breakdown.
I'm going to have a delineation pointwhere I started to lose interest in his
projects, and the films that worked forme versus the ones that did not almost

(11:17):
always had this over reliance on CGI.
In a way, maybe he neededto be a little constrained.
It is the tactile nature of Beetlejuice,and Even Pee wee's Big Adventure
and even Batman, which is a hugefilm at the time, a huge, huge film.
But those are sets for the mostpart that they're interacting on
with very limited special effects.
I mean, the Batwing is a model, right?

(11:39):
So there is a tactile natureto the best of his films.
And here we have a lot of CGI, butthere also feels a lot of sets, a
lot of design, practical design, andthe blend is very good here, I think.
It feels like a real place, a bizarroworld, of course, that he's inhabiting,
but it feels more tactile and real thansomething, for example, once again, Miss

(12:01):
Peregrine's School for Peculiar Children.
So once again, I'm not evengoing to bother spoiling this.
It's a bunch of gags strung together.
Most of them are very funny.
The design work is beautiful.
The world building is very nice.
The script is a complete mess, butit does come together at the end.
And if you're a Tim Burtonfan, you're gonna like this.
If you're a Beetlejuicefan, you're gonna like this.
Maybe even like it a lot.

(12:21):
If you hate Beetlejuice, if you have nointerest in the Tim Burton project in
general, you can probably avoid this.
You probably won't hate it,but you're probably not gonna
get much out of it either.
Wait until you can rent it athome if you're on the fence.
All right, so let's kick off theTim Burton career retrospective.
Tim Burton, believe it or not, grewup in California, Burbank, right with
production studios practically inhis backyard, despite the fact that

(12:43):
he always felt like an outsider andhe was always into art and drawing.
He actually was an athlete in highschool, but started doing a lot of
animation work, stop motion animation.
He actually went to theCalifornia Institute of the Arts.
where he started to make stop motionanimations and got him a lot of attention.
As a matter of fact, got him aposition as a animator inside

(13:03):
of the Walt Disney Corporation.
He actually did a lot of storyboardingand concept art for some of these
big early 80s Disney movies.
This was actually when Disney waskind of in the dumps, by the way.
So most of these films were flops, buthe Got a lot of practical experience
working on films like The Fox and theHound, Tron, and The Black Cauldron.
Once again, all flops at the time.

(13:24):
And they really couldn't finda place for his sensibility.
He definitely had thisoutsider sensibility.
But as I mentioned, Disneywas kind of struggling.
at this moment with the traditionalDisney aesthetics and the
cartoons they were producing.
And they gave him a little bit of moneyto make a short film called Vincent, which
was actually narrated by Vincent Price.
And this black and white stopmotion animation interestingly

(13:47):
shows a lot of the motifs that aregoing to be in his entire career.
What is kind of fascinating aboutBurton's aesthetic is that he loved the
old black and white horror films likeFrankenstein, one of his favorite films,
but also throughout the 1950s and 60s.
As I mentioned with the BeetlejuiceReview, he also loved these early Italian
horror films from that era as well.

(14:09):
So he was combining this blackand white aesthetic, but very
much with the whimsy of Disney.
So he, which of course was inBurbank, right in his backyard.
So it's as if these aesthetics gotblended together, these sensibilities.
He made an even longer short filmcalled Frankenweenie, eventually
would become a feature film yearslater, and had a recognizable

(14:29):
cast, including Shelley Duvall.
So a lot of people were buzzingabout him as what is going to
be his first directing project.
Simultaneously, Paul Rooms had auditionedfor the revamped Saturday Night Live.
This was in 1981, the year thatSaturday Night Live was getting
rid of their original cast,churning through the whole thing.
This is what the, when they thoughtSaturday Night Live was going to die

(14:50):
after the original cast members, BillMurray, Dan Aykroyd, et cetera, left.
But of course, struck pay dirtwith Eddie Murphy, Joe Piscopo,
and that whole cast of folks.
And Paul Rubens auditionedand he almost made the cut.
And then when he didn't, healmost quit the business.
But instead, he took one of hischaracters, this Pee Wee Herman character,
and started doing an off Broadway,the equivalent of an off Broadway

(15:11):
in Los Angeles version of this show,as if it was this demented It Show.
He had seen Frank and Weenie, like peopleon Insiders were seeing this, and by
the way, Warner Brothers wanted to makethe Pee Wee Herman show into a movie.
They had recorded it at one point, put iton late night against Saturday Night Live.
On HBO used to have a late night comedyblock against SNL and they showed the

(15:33):
Pee Wee Herman show there in one of thoseslots and it was very successful for HBO.
So Warner Brothers was like,Hey, we'll give you 5 million,
turn this into a movie.
And Paul Rubens went to TimBurton, who was on the short list
of possible directors, and hereally liked Frank and Weenie.
And they just thought they wouldbe simpatico, and it turned out
to be a match made in heaven.
So believe it or not, for thiscareer retrospective, it's the first

(15:56):
time I have ever seen Pee Wee'sBig Adventure all the way through.
I had never seen thisfilm all the way through.
I was in middle school, perhaps?
Maybe even younger, when this came out.
I remember people imitating the dance, inmy grammar school, middle school, whatever
it was at that time, grammar school.
But I did not see the film.

(16:17):
And this was the first yearI had moved to the suburbs.
So it was a summer where I had seenso many movies in the movie theater,
but for whatever reason, not that one.
And a few things that I come away withfrom having seen this for the first time.
First of all, this movie'sreally, really funny.
I laughed so much watching this movie.
Second revelation for me was that I knewso many of these skits, so many of these

(16:41):
things have just become ingrained inthe culture that I was shocked to see
that I have not seen this film all theway through, but pretty much knew almost
everything that happens in it, even thehow you get from one scene to the next.
And that's really key, by the way,going back to Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
This is another bit of aretrospective that's being.
Implemented there.
It is very much like a review.

(17:03):
It is just a bunch of skits tied togetherone after the other And that's my next
revelation in all of this obviouslyfrom seeing the film itself the goal of
the film was to take paul rubin's skitsand tie them together into a film and
Burton does such a great job with this.
I mean, I cannot compliment him enoughIt sounds like it's easy and you just

(17:25):
put the camera on and he does his stuff.
That's not true at all.
He's paying off jokes.
He's seeding those jokes, three,four, five scenes earlier, and then
paying them off visually later on.
It's really clever stuff.
Obviously it's probably in the scriptwhen Rubens was coming up with these
skits, but being able to pull that off.
visually is so adept for someonewho's making their first feature film

(17:48):
is really impressive work for me.
Like having, having seen this, I neglectedthis as it's just a kid's film, whatever.
I'll get around to it someday.
And I was really impressedby Burton's work here.
For sure.
Oh, next revelation is I had neverseen this film before, but my daughter,
of course, like every child lovesSpongeBob SquarePants, especially
those early seasons of SpongeBob.
She's seen the first two or threeseasons of that show over and over again.

(18:11):
The other ones she dabbles in, butthose first two or three seasons in
constant rotation, especially whenshe was even younger than she is now.
And so many of the jokes.
From Spongebob are rightout of Peewee Herman.
So of course Spongebob is basicallyPeewee Herman and I had never realized
that until now yet another revelationfor me So definitely a very entertaining

(18:33):
film definitely recommend this one,especially if you're curious at all
about Tim Burton's starting pointThere are some inappropriate jokes
here, by the way, that I completelywould not have gotten earlier.
So you can probably watchthis with your kids.
The kids, your kidswill probably love this.
Pee wee's full of imagination,always inventing new things.
His contraptions for getting up inthe morning, and very Spongebob.

(18:53):
I think if your kids loveSpongebob, they're going They
will love Pee Wee Herman.
And like I said, there are some jokes,you're like, Oh, wow, I wouldn't
have caught that, but they're allwritten that way in a way that you
probably would not have caught it orthey definitely will not catch it.
So I do recommend this as family viewing.
If you're curious to give it a look,this film was an enormous success.
It ended up costing 8 million.
This is according to Wikipedia.
So I've heard different.

(19:15):
Budgets on this, but let's say 8 million.
It made over $40 million in the USBack in the eighties, you didn't really
know what the overseas numbers were.
I'm presuming that overseas numbers werepretty small compared to its US numbers.
'cause this was a sleeper.
No one was expecting thisthing to become a blockbuster.
Became a massive hit once itturned out on cable, once it came
out on cable and in ancillaries.

(19:37):
And of course launched a TVseries that ran for years.
So everybody made a lot ofmoney off of this Huey Herman.
So of course, Tim Burton was ahot commodity here at this point.
He was offered some prettyterrible comedy scripts.
One of them was Hot to Trot withBobcat Goldthwait, which has a
0 percent Rotten Tomatoes score.
So maybe Burton could have elevatedthat material, but he probably dodged

(19:59):
a bullet by not making some of thesefilms that were offered to him.
Pee wee's Big Adventure came out in 85.
And years went by without himputting out a film, Warner Brothers
was like, what do you want to make?
What do you want to make?
There was one film in developmentthat he definitely wanted to
make, and that film was Batman.
And Warner Brothers was like,we are not giving you Batman.
That is not going to happen.
But he kept developing it,and he had some success.

(20:21):
sketches he had done storyboardingfor Disney, remember?
So he had storyboarded, he didhis own stop motion animation.
So he had done some clay figurines, his,so it was very, very well developed.
So at first Warner Brothers islike, we're not going to give you
this, you don't have the experience.
Then they saw his design work,and they're like, I don't know.
We don't know if we want to goth Batman.

(20:41):
But then over time, they're like,looking at his design work, like,
man, this is really well fleshed out.
He's really thought about everything.
Maybe we can make this work.
But they were still not certain.
They weren't really confident aboutthis, and they were still trying to go
in a more generic direction with Batman.
Now, remember Warner Brothers had had 10years prior, 10 years, they had had the

(21:02):
massive worldwide phenomena of the firstSuperman film, the Christopher Reeve film.
Those films had progressively becomeless successful at the box office.
Superman 4 had been a complete fiascoand in general, comic book movies
were a dud, but they had this Batmancharacter, which was so famous,
they had to at least give it a shot.
So they were desperately trying toget this off the ground, and they

(21:23):
were, had trepidations about Burton.
We've been developingthis thing for years.
In the meantime, Burton hadbeen doing some TV directing.
He directed an episode of the rebootedAlfred Hitchcock Presents, and the
script was written by the same folkswho ended up writing a script called
Beetlejuice, about basically theopposite of poltergeist, a ghost that

(21:43):
exercises humans from your haunted house.
And so, The script was darker.
Beetlejuice was more of a demonicand trickster type character.
He wanted to have sexwith the Lydia character.
All these things, not reallycorrect for a PG rated film.
So Burton worked with these writers onthe script, massaged the material into

(22:04):
a more goofy, bringing in some of thathigh energy, visual inventiveness, and
mousetrap like contraptions from hisexperience with Huey's Big Adventure.
And when Warner Brothers saw thefinished product, which they were,
they wanted to keep him on the hook.
They were interested in his Batman take.
They didn't want to give,throw everything away.
They'd had a huge successwith the previous film.

(22:25):
They offered him a pretty bigbudget, 15 million at the time for
a comedy, a supernatural comedy.
That's a pretty big budget.
Adjusted for inflation, that's like a 40,50 million budget for Warner Brothers.
a supernatural comedy?
No, I mean, you had Ghostbusters,which definitely was a reason that I'm
certain people were looking for thenext Ghostbusters, the next Poltergeist,

(22:46):
two massively successful films.
So 15 million seemed like areasonable amount of money.
They had made at least thatmuch on Peewee's Big Adventure.
They were willing to take the risk hereand keep them all around in case he came
up with any other interesting ideas.
But when they saw the finishedproduct, they were like this thing.
It's going to be a disaster, butthat's not what happened at all.
The film came out and was a hugehit, making 75 million in the U.

(23:09):
S.
that in today's money, once again,adjusting for inflation, you're talking
about well over 200 million, way morethan they expected to make off this thing.
That's just in the United States.
That doesn't include ancillaries.
That doesn't include the factthat it became a very successful
cartoon show afterwards as well.
So once again, everybody made a lot ofmoney on this and Burton was ascendant.
Once again, I rewatched this probablyfor the first time since I've seen

(23:33):
it on cable, who knows, 30 someodd years ago, 35 years ago, I
did not see this in the theaters.
And, uh, I was really impressedwith it in the fact that the
world building's really good.
Michael Keaton is so funny in the role.
Very underused.
I was shocked to see that youbasically don't even see Beetlejuice.
I mean, I think you see him on TV, inan advertisement for a few seconds.

(23:55):
He's looming, like we know he's coming.
We know he's coming.
Very smart way to designthis within the script.
But it's literally the midpointof the film, 45, 50 minutes in
when he shows up for the firsttime, and then he disappears.
And then he's back againat the end, of course.
But it's like 15, 20 minutes of the film.
And obviously you don't rememberthat because he's such a, he

(24:16):
looms over the entire project.
And when Keaton shows up sofunny in the role, and of course
the whole Keaton side of this.
So Keaton here too, emerging as a star,he'd been in the massively popular Mr.
Mom, the less successful Gung Ho, Andhonestly, in my little understanding of
him as, as an actor at this moment, Idon't even know why he would have, why
he would have been cast as Beetlejuice,but obviously a completely iconic

(24:40):
character, which is surprising thatit still is so relevant in culture
because He never reprised the role.
So maybe it's because of the cartoonwhich lasted for a few years Maybe it's
because why no no writer so young in thatoriginal film became such a huge star And
of course Catherine O'Hara also being inthe Home Alone films So all these stars

(25:00):
had much bigger profiles for the decadesto come and of course Burton himself
Becoming one of the most successfuldirectors of his era Probably extended
the life of this film, which honestlywatching it, it's kind of shocking that
it has had kind of the life it has.
It's not because it's not a good film,but because it doesn't seem to have
that it factor that you would thinkwould be necessary for this type of

(25:21):
thing to be a cultural meme for so long.
But anyway, back to Burton,another huge success.
Again, people are thinking thisthing's not going to be popular, is it?
And of course, it's very popular.
So Warner Brothers says,what do you want to do now?
And he says, I want to do Batman.
And now Warner Brothers starts thinking,all right, look, we had a sleeper hit with
Beetlejuice and it made a lot of money.

(25:43):
We barely advertised that movie.
What if we do like a full court press?
We say, he's a visionary.
People know who he is now.
He's made two very popular films.
Even more popular on home video.
And Batman, Batman by himselfis going to attract a crowd.
So let's, and, and very importantlyby the way, all the other possible
options, other development, you name it.

(26:04):
pathways for a Batmanfilm had all fallen apart.
So they're like, let'sjust do the Burton thing.
He's pretty much pre visualizedthe entire film at this point.
And they gave him 40 million,a massive budget at the time,
to make this Batman film.
They get Jack Nicholsonto play the Joker role.
And Nicholson agrees to it, buttakes 10 percent of the box office

(26:25):
and a chunk of the merchandisingsupposedly because of the amazing
amount of merchandising on this film.
He earned some 100 million on thisfilm, and that is in 1989 money.
But of course, this film isa massive, massive success.
It comes out in 89, a yearfull of hugely popular films.
And is the biggest of those giant films.

(26:47):
It makes 250 million dollars inthe US, at the time had the biggest
opening weekend of any film in history.
Made over 400 million dollars worldwide,once again with Burton's Films, often the
case with Burton's Films, bigger in the U.
S.
than overseas.
And now we regularly see comicbook films perform significantly
better overseas, but at the time,that wasn't necessarily the case.
And of course, comic books were prettyunknown commodities at the time.

(27:09):
As far as movie adaptations, Supermanhad been a massive success, but
that was pretty rare at this point.
And what else can you say about this film?
It rejuvenated the box office after acouple of years of a box office downturn.
It, in no small part, began the worldwe live in now of these comic book
adaptations being so ubiquitous.

(27:30):
But another thing is that at thispoint in time, when this film came
out and I saw this movie in the movietheater multiple times, I was in high
school, I believe, at this point.
And I was already a precocious film fan,so I had already seen Clockwork Orange
and then had become a Kubrick fan.
I had already seen Taxi Driverand became a Scorsese fan.

(27:51):
I, of course, had seenSpielberg's biggest films.
I had just seen Aliens in themovie theaters, and of course
had seen Terminator on cable 500times, and was a Cameron fan.
So you had, I had my guys,I had David Lynch, right?
I had already seen Blue Velvetat this point, believe it or not.
I shouldn't have seen Blue Velvetat this point, but I had seen it.

(28:11):
And I was already becoming a Lynch fan,and I was even becoming a Cronenberg fan.
Believe it or not, I had seen The Flyin movie theaters, had caught up on
his back catalog of films, and then hadseen Dead Ringers just the year before.
And so, precociously getting intothe artsy fartsy type of films that,
you know, honestly, a 14 year oldshould probably not be watching.

(28:34):
But I was getting deep into films asIf you're a hardcore film fan, you
probably have a similar biography.
But what I find so interesting wasthat I remember seeing Batman in the
movie theaters, even as a film fan.
And one of the things that was so excitingabout it was that somebody who was so
idiosyncratic, someone who was not ageneric, by the rules filmmaker, making

(28:59):
something that felt like it His own andit was so massively successful and people
he became a brand name basically at thismoment Tim Burton became a brand name
and what's the most interesting thingabout it is listening to Recent podcasts
where they covered Burton's career andhearing people who are five years younger
than me Some of these podcasters 10years younger than me 25 years younger

(29:20):
than me and they all have the same storyThey saw Batman and Batman was like a
gateway to oh, that's what a directordoes You Now, that wasn't my experience,
because like I said, I had already seenClockwork Orange at this point in 2001.
Most people at that age probablydon't do that, but I had.
But my point is that even with thatexperience, that knowledge of other
filmmakers, I still appreciated thefact that I'm like, Oh, see, like

(29:43):
he's going to make tourism mainstream.
It brings it to the summer blockbuster.
I don't know why that was so eyeopening to me, honestly, because you
think about Spielberg, for example.
But I think that because, and this isan unsophisticated take, but now I can
obviously appreciate what makes Spielberg,Spielberg, what makes Cameron, Cameron,
even though their style is more subtle.

(30:05):
Burton's style is so in yourface that as soon as you see
one frame of the movie, you knowyou're watching a Tim Burton film.
And maybe that's why these young people.
I generation after generation gravitate tohim as an auteur because it is so obvious.
It's like, you know, this wasnot made by James Cameron.
You watch a James Cameron film for fiveminutes, you watch an action sequence
and you know, this must be Cameron.
Look at the, you know, look at thegeography of this action sequence.

(30:28):
This must be Cameron.
Look at everything's blue.
Why is everything blue?
Must be Cameron.
But you need to have a little feelfor The pacing of the film and the
visuals for a little bit, like I said,Tim Burton, two minutes of his films.
You're like, well, that'sonly one person who did.
This is Tim Burton, right?
I mean, over time that became generic.
So people copied it so many times thatmaybe it did become a Instagram filter.

(30:49):
But at that moment, he was a oneand only he was a one of one.
And he makes this name for himself.
Now in between Batman and Batman Returns,he wants to make Edward Scissorhands.
Now he takes it to Warner Brothers.
Warner Brothers doesn't want it,shockingly, honestly, given how much money
they've made on his previous projects.
And this is, even at the time, obviously,a very personal film for Burton.

(31:12):
I think this is Burton talking abouthis experience of growing up in Burbank,
California, where Not in the ritziestpart but in the suburbs where you have
your tiki taki all the homes all the sameCandy colored and he's this goth kid.
He's the outsider and this is his visualrepresentation of this Monochromatic

(31:34):
outsider and how he feels in this worldalways sunny No seasons as he's described
it in the past geography and how hejust felt so alienated, but it's also a
sweet film He has people who love him.
He has people who care for him, butthere's another metaphor here, too He is
already starting to feel as a creativeperson that yes They will bring you in

(31:56):
the mainstream the milquetoast AmericanaCulture will embrace you as long as
you're making money for them when theycan sell your art when they can sell your
otherness, your uniqueness, to have alittle bit of their own cachet, to have an
interesting thing to talk about that week.
But this wholehearted embrace is a facade.
It's a trap in a way.

(32:17):
So it is about his young adulthood andpossibly even more autobiographical,
maybe about a specific relationshipthat he had at some point.
But I think it also spoke to the fact thathe is now becoming part of this machine.
He's making Batman.
He's about to make the Batman sequel.
How much of his self does he have tosurrender to play in this larger sandbox?

(32:39):
And if you haven't seen EdwardScissorhands or haven't seen it in a long
time, this is a really beautiful, iconicfilm, you know, for better and worse,
it made Johnny Depp a household name.
It's his breakthrough role as a star.
He still gives excellent, anexcellent performance here.
He's become, you know, he becameeventually a caricature of himself,
but at this moment, he's still givinga really interesting performance.

(33:01):
And it's just a fairytale, right?
This is a intentionally very muchintentionally designed as a fairytale
and a beautiful film across the board.
And for me, maybe still to thisday, my favorite Burton film.
And honestly, it's probably if I sayto this day, I mean, I don't know
unless he's got an Oppenheimer uphis sleeve sometime down the road.
Uh, in the future, who knows, maybehe can make a biographical film
about Mario Bava or something likethat, that, uh, you know, intersects

(33:25):
with the last days of Mussolini.
I don't know, but maybe that'sin the future somewhere.
Uh, at this moment, I think that this isprobably the tip of the iceberg for him.
He followed, this is a big hit by the way,makes a lot of money in the United States
overseas, big hit with the iconic t shirt,the iconic styling of Edward Scissorhands.
I'm sure just in merchandise, thisthing has made its budget back

(33:46):
over the course of its career.
Oh, of course, another name we haveto throw in here is Danny Elfman
doing the music for most of his films.
One of the most popular music composersof the era and really gets his start
here Leaving Oingo Boingo or to becomethis music composer and almost synonymous
with Burton's films He follows thatup with the Batman Returns film that

(34:09):
sets a new record for opening weekendAnd this film is really controversial.
Parents take their kids to go see it.
It's the new Batman movie.
The kids all want to go see it.
It's grim.
Penguin is a repugnant,repulsive character.
Children are abducted to be murdered.
They're not, luckily.
But there's violence andugliness in the film.

(34:32):
It is Even darker than Batman.
I think people forget how dark Batman is.
By the way, they acted at the time Iremember this period of time how people
were outraged by this and I rememberseeing it in the theaters at the time
and I Was disappointed although even onmy first watch I thought Catwoman was
absolutely an Incredible character andMichelle Pfeiffer does such a great job.

(34:54):
And by the way, Danny DeVito does a greatjob as the penguin I just did not like
having the penguin character in the filmAnd then of course it came out on cable
and I watched it on, someone gave itto me at Christmas on VHS or something.
And I watched it many times afterthat and primarily rewatched the
Catwoman scenes and the CatwomanBatman scenes, which are so great.
Such great chemistrybetween the two leads.

(35:16):
and really did not rewatchthe Penguin scenes as much
because it was pretty rough.
But I do love this film now, but itis really imperfect, as is so much
the case with so many of his films.
The Penguin characterseems almost extraneous.
I mean, there are some interestingthematic parallels there with what
happened to him as an orphan versuswhat happened to Bruce Wayne.

(35:39):
But it feels like you could haveminimized that character somewhat and
still achieve some of the same goals.
And some of the visuals are beautiful.
Some of the action sequencesare very well done.
But despite all that,it, uh, it's imperfect.
But like I said, the Catwoman, Batmanrelationship is really fascinating.
It really is what makes the filmreally hold up to this very day.

(35:59):
And really, I think if you haven'tseen this one in a while, check it out.
It was a little bit of a chinkin his armor, although the film
still made a fortune at the boxoffice, well over 300 million.
And people say, Oh, but that wasless than the previous Batman movie.
But back in that, those times, believeit or not, sequels almost always
underperformed the previous film.

(36:20):
So it was not uncommon atall to expect to see that.
So it didn't hurt hisreputation that much.
At this point, he began arelationship with Disney again.
So after Disney had not really beenable to figure out what to do with him,
and then he had transitioned over toWarner Brothers and had been pretty
loyally working for Warner Brothers.
But then when Warner Brothers rejectedhis Edward Scissorhands take, he started

(36:41):
to shop around to think of maybe he couldbuild a relationship with someone else.
And of course he had already hadthis relationship with Disney.
And the first thing they didtogether, we have to include it here
because it is not directed by him,actually directed by Henry Selig.
who also directed Coraline, whichjust got re released this year.
An incredible movie, beautiful filmto see in 3D if you get a chance to
still see it in theaters while you can.

(37:03):
I'm sure this will become a perennial rerelease, the Coraline film, just like this
film I'm talking about right now, which isThe Nightmare Before Christmas, which is
also released practically every year now.
And of course, not.
Tim Burton directing, but Tim Burtonwrote the book on which the film is based.
And of course, his design aesthetic,because he drew all the pictures

(37:23):
as well, are all over this.
And once again, you just look at thatand you immediately think Tim Burton.
You don't think Henry Selig, but hereally should get more credit for that,
of course, but still back on topic.
Tim Burton has a film that actuallyslightly underperforms based on what
Disney's expectations are the budget ispretty big for this stop motion, a very
painstaking process obviously of animationand the film makes money, but not the kind

(37:46):
of money Disney was expecting to make.
However, once again, long term,this thing becomes a phenomena.
It gets released over and over again.
And you think about just themerchandising on the Jack Skellington
character and all the other charactersin this film for generations of kids.
If there is, and there probably willbe someday, a live action version
of this, Disney will probablymake this as an adaptation at

(38:07):
some point with an all star cast.
And a 180 million budgetfor all the special effects.
And there are many generations of childrenwho have grown up watching this, so it's
probably inevitably going to happen,and it will probably make a fortune, and
they probably want Burton to direct it.
And that same year, from Disneyonce again, comes, I think,

(38:27):
the end of this incredible runthat Burton had at this point.
And perfect opening to a career anda long streak here, by the way, he
ends things with Ed Wood, anotherabsolutely beautiful film, almost a
sibling to the Edward Scissorhands film.
Another unlikely creator who'schewed up, chewed up by Hollywood.

(38:52):
The Hollywood system.
I think Burton very much looks at EdWood, this complete failed cult director.
And he thinks that could have been me.
That could have been me.
I could have had a flop film or never madea major film or produce these things on
my own and been just doing like littlestop motion films in my backyard and never
had had any kind of mainstream success.

(39:15):
This film actually does notmake much money at all on paper.
It looks like a flop, but it gotmultiple Academy Award nominations.
It got excellent reviews, and it's sowell respected, and everybody who's
seen this, if you have never seenthis film, check it out, I think it's
available on Disney Plus and Hulu.
Regardless of how it did intheaters, once it was available
at home, it found its audience.

(39:35):
And for me, this is theend of his hot streak.
Now, I know people, 1996, we're up tonow, we're talking about Mars Attacks.
It's very much him doing an homageto the 1950s sci fi Martian invasion
films, the specific trading cards, bythe way, Mars Attacks, but also Dr.
Strangelove.
We have Jack Nicholson hereplaying three different roles,

(39:57):
like Peter Sellers in that film.
So it's a mashup of differentgenres that he's trying to riff on.
It's more a satire of those things.
It's very much feels on paper like it isa very Tim Burton project, but it's the
beginning of this very messy concoction.
Once again, we'll see this multipletimes in his career where he's kind

(40:20):
of trying to Putting in 20 differentcharacters, 15 different side plots,
and they do, once again, this iskind of going back to Beetlejuice,
Beetlejuice, how all these plot linesstart to intersect as the film goes on.
But for me, I think the biggest problemI have is I like the design work.
I love the design of these Martians.
He actually sculpted these things.

(40:41):
They're beautiful looking.
If you ever see them in,there's like a traveling.
Um, museum show of his artwork fromhis movies, and I love the Martian
design, but it's all done with CGI andCGI is really a barrier for me and him.
Some of this is practical.
I think if this was all done with puppets,like all had been stop motion, and I
think that would have been too expensive,too painstaking, and maybe today with

(41:04):
the special effects that we have now,you could basically make them look like
they're stop motion, which is kind ofwhat we see in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,
by the way, with the sandworms.
Maybe this would work better.
It's almost like you need to remaster thisand maybe see what it would look like.
Uh, I would be open to that.
I know filmmakers don't like this idea,but if you could go in there and redo all
the effects work in this film with modernCGI, not to make it look like polished,

(41:29):
Avatar level CGI, but to make it lookalmost like an art deco representation
of the style of the fifties.
I would be open to that.
I'd be curious to seewhat that would look like.
So there's some great ideas in thisfilm, but it doesn't work for me.
Still doesn't work for me.
Although I do love the design work.
I do love the ideas in hereand the film doesn't work.

(41:49):
And it didn't work atthe box office either.
The film cost about ahundred million dollars.
It only made a hundred million dollars.
It did not have that kind of cultfollowing that grew over years.
Maybe recently it has, but Idon't think that they've made
much money on this film, if any.
They didn't sell toys, whichthey definitely wanted to do.
He did return to Warner Brothers for this.
And we start to see at this time, thatchink in, first chink in his armor.

(42:10):
Then we see, he follows that upthree years later with Sleepy Hollow.
He reunites with Johnny Depp.
He has Christina Ricci here, whichseems like a no brainer for him
to work with Christina Ricci.
The OG Wednesday Adam, I guess,actually not the OG, but the OG for
my generation, Wednesday Adam, Adams.
This comes out from Paramount.
And this works better than MarsAttacks, but this one doesn't

(42:32):
really work for me either.
The reason I think I like this betteris because it is mostly practical.
It's stunt work, and it'ssomeone in a suit pretending to
be the Headless Horseman, andit's a lot of lighting effects.
It's a lot of beautiful gothic sets.
It's very much trying to be in thestyle of a Hammer movie from the 1950s,
another big influence that I haven'tcalled out yet on his filmmaking.

(42:55):
He wants to make these type of bigsets of folk horror style of those
Hammer studio films from the 50swith bright red spatters of blood.
So I do like all the aestheticsignposts that he has there.
I like a lot of theaction here in the film.
The action is actually pretty good.
I like that our hero here is thiscowardly investigator, not the

(43:19):
traditional brawny hero, very mucha Edward Scissorhands type character
played by Johnny Depp once again.
So there are things I like about the film.
It doesn't quite all work for me, butit does work better than Mars Attacks.
But for the first time, I start feelingthat his aesthetics and the material he's
working on, he doesn't have enough of hisown ideas to develop all the way through.

(43:43):
He's taking these, Hey,how about do Sleepy Hollow?
Hey, how about do Mars Attack?
It feels like he's saying,Hey, why don't you try this?
And then he brings his ideas to it,but they're not quite fully baked.
And I think that seems to be pretty much.
the rest of his career, unfortunately.
To that point, he gets hiredto make Planet of the Apes.
It's shocking.
First of all, shocking that the Planet ofthe Apes series, which I covered here in

(44:05):
a podcast, track down that podcast episodein the backlog, if you want to hear my
review of that entire 11 movie cycle.
This movie is not the completeand utter train wreck that
everybody claims it to be.
Not in my opinion, anyway.
But what I will say was I was shockedwhen I saw this in theaters, by the way,
I did see it in theaters, just hiringWahlberg here as your lead character,

(44:26):
an actor that I do find entertainingsometimes, especially in his more
comedic roles, but does not seem likethe right actor for a Tim Burton film.
And to that point, the, the gorillamakeup effects are absolutely incredible.
They're beautiful at all practical, whichI do love that aspect of this, uh, film.
film.
But other than the makeup, there's nothingin here that feels like Burton at all.

(44:49):
Like, this is as genericfilmmaking as you can get.
I'm so disappointed to thinkthat this is Burton doing this.
He brings nothing of himselfto the material, I think.
But this is another pattern.
This is another pattern you'll see here.
The films that people will berate him themost for are some of his most Financially
successful this film made almost fourhundred million dollars worldwide at

(45:11):
the time very successful for its budgetBut there was such a bad taste left in
people's mouths that they never followedthis up with a sequel Of course, the
series would continue in a differentdirection, but it would take years for
that to happen That happened again.
He followed that up in 2003 with apretty beautiful film, I think, a
film called Big Fish, which has EwanMcGregor reuniting with his father who

(45:33):
always told these big fish stories, thestories that he told about his travels
when he was away from him as a boy.
And it's really about therepairing of this relationship
between this father and this son.
This film very much works for me.
Emotionally, I love the design work.
It's really beautiful.
And I do like the payoff wherewe start saying that a lot of
these stories are made up, butthey're all variations on reality.

(45:55):
And I think Burton is talking abouthow stories themselves are this buffer.
They make our reality better, and theyalso allow us to process these emotions.
traumas of our childhood or ourpasts through these stories.
This film made money.
This film got good reviews, but it didn'tget any kind of Academy Award attention.
And I think that wasreally the intention here.
So I think this was seen as a bit ofa disappointment, but it is one of his

(46:17):
better films, by the way, and really onethat most people probably haven't watched
as part of his retrospective because theydon't consider it a Burton film, but it
really is Very indicative of back halfof his career for better and worse, but
this is the best version of it I think hefollows that up immediately with Charlie
and the chocolate factory now There'sa lot of Burton isms in this we have

(46:40):
Johnny Depp again doing a Michael Jacksonimpression Practically and we have a lot
of the design work that we expect fromhis type of films These are on the candy
colored Technicolor variety reversesthe goth version of his aesthetics You
And I know people hate this film becausethey love the Gene Wilder film so much.
I was never a huge fanof the Gene Wilder film.

(47:03):
It's better than this, butit's not like some masterpiece.
I think it's overstated howmuch people love that film.
So I was open to areinterpretation, let's say.
And this film is awesome.
Okay, which is a disappointmentin that Burton, this should be a
slam dunk for Burton basically,and it's not, it's just okay.
And part of that reason,once again, is all the CGI.

(47:24):
This is a very expensivefilm with a lot of CGI.
He can do anything that comesto his mind because of the CGI.
And in some ways, I think Burtonneeds to be a little constrained.
I think if he had to do this allpractically, if he made that his
own goal, I'm going to build allthese sets and spend the same money,
but I'm going to build it all.
The story would be more streamlined.
The jokes would hit better andless of this CGI gobbledygook.

(47:49):
And I'm not anti CGI, by the way.
I think it can work really wellin the right circumstances.
I like love the Avatar films, for example.
That's obviously the cream ofthe crop for that type of thing,
but this didn't need to be.
CGI.
And as a matter of fact, onceagain, we're talking about candy.
We're talking about kidsin this fantasy world.
The more tactile it is, the morefun it would be as a kid's film.

(48:11):
So it's not as bad as everybodysay says it should have
been a slam dunk for Burton.
And it was not, not evenclose, but of course.
It was another huge boxoffice success that same year.
He also directed in this case, actuallydirected a stop motion corpse bride film.
This is a beautiful back tohis black and white aesthetic.
This is actually not the story'snot that great, although it does

(48:34):
hit me emotionally by the time weget to the end, but the design work
in this film is really beautiful.
And you really have a sense of onceagain, the more tactile we are with
what we're What he's putting onthe screen, the better it works.
And he follows that up in2007 with Sweeney Todd.
Now this film, another big hitgets Academy Award nominations.
Johnny Depp is not a great singer, but Ithought he gave a good performance here.

(48:57):
I like this film a lot.
And I think that has to do withthe fact that I had never seen
any production of Sweeney Todd.
So maybe if I was a big Sondheim fanand I had to Heard hundreds of different
versions of these iconic performances.
I would think that the songs are terribleand the staging is terrible, but for
me, it was the first time other thanknowing the concept of Sweeney Todd.

(49:17):
It's the first time I'd seen itperformed all the way through.
I thought this was a very well done song.
Screen adaptation and a lot of that isjust the power of the play itself, which
is iconic for sure for a reason andOnce again, maybe if I had familiarity
with the play beforehand, I would be ormusical I guess I should say I would have
been less forgiving of this but for meAs an entry point, I thought it was very

(49:41):
good and I actually love the look of it.
It's very stagey, but hey, thisis an adaptation of a musical.
So it almost feels intentionalthat we're supposed to feel
like we are on a soundstage andthis is being performed for us.
So all of it works for me.
I even like Depp's performance.
He's singing.
He's not great, but some of the otherperformers have great singing voices.

(50:01):
The music's great, of course.
And uh, yeah, this is a reallygood one and a very grim musical.
Shocking that, uh, this musical, which is,you know, decades old, many decades old.
It really goes for it.
It's a pretty grim topic here.
And a financial success as well.
It made some 150 million orso for this type of film, an
impressive box office take.

(50:22):
And it's really all downhill from there.
In 2010, in the wake of Avatar, justone year after Avatar, he makes the
Alice in Wonderland film for Disney.
This is when they're starting tomake live action remakes of all their
old classic Animations, and I haveonly seen this film one time I saw
it at a team building event at thecompany I was working at at the time.

(50:45):
Believe it or not, wewent there for lunch.
Of course, this was in the wake ofAvatar, so we had to see it in 3D.
This is post conversion3D, not shot in 3D.
It looks absolutely atrocious.
It looks like everybodyis a cut out figurine.
Um, on a flat surface.
It's it looks absolutely terrible.
Post converted 3D looks absolutely bad.

(51:06):
This is why 3D film going in generalhas gone down the toilet because
people weren't shooting in 3D.
They were doing thisconversion after the fact.
It looks awful.
And this film just looks terrible.
So the and I've never rewatched it.
So I know some people likethe design work in this film.
Some of the actual creaturedesigns, and this is all CGI.

(51:28):
Some of it actually looks prettynice just purely as design work.
But this film for me, I remember seeingthis in theaters and absolutely hating
it, and I'm sure that terrible 3Dpresentation had something to do with it.
But I despise this film, andI know so many people who
hated it so much in general.
I've never gone back to it again.
And of course, this is theirony of his entire career.

(51:48):
Here's one of the films of histhat one of the few that I actually
could say, I just downright despise.
And it made over a billion dollars.
So it's, there's the success ofhis films and the quality of his
films do not necessarily line up.
He followed that up in2012 with dark shadows.
Johnny Depp is back.
Everyone's getting sick of Johnny Deppat this point, even before he got, he got

(52:09):
semi canceled or before the court case.
This film has an incredible.
Prologue that sets up the currentstate, the doomed romance of Barnabas.
And once again, very much is a, iswinked at in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.
Yet, once again, this is why I keepbringing up the fact that Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice feels like a capstone toBurton's career up until this point.

(52:32):
There are so many Elements ofthis film that feels like Burton
is redoing or trying again to dosomething that he did successfully
before, or maybe failed that before.
And he's trying to reclaim a bit inthis latest film, but dark shadows,
even dark shadows didn't lose money.
Oh, and you know, of course, justto finish off that mini review, the.
Prologue is excellent and beautifuland really, really well done.

(52:56):
I remember seeing this in theaters,by the way, with my nephews, probably
totally inappropriate to be seeingthis with my nephews at the time.
They were very young and,uh, didn't realize, you know,
it was a Johnny Depp movie.
I didn't know if it was goingto be that inappropriate, very
sexual, lots of sex jokes.
And once they get to contemporary times.
It should be funny that this vampire'sout of time and it's, it should work
and it doesn't, it really does not work.

(53:18):
Just watch the prologue and thenyou can skip the rest of the film.
That same year, he madeanother stop motion.
He made a feature length version of Frankand Weenie going all the way back to his
short film that in many ways launched hiscareer and extended it to feature length.
This is actually pretty good.
It's pretty sweet.
Made in stop motion, whereas theshort was actually mostly live action.
And it did fine.

(53:39):
Once again, this is diminishingreturns for his career at this point.
Dark Shadows doesn't make any money.
It doesn't lose much money either.
Frank and Weenie makes a littlebit of money, but definitely not
what Disney was hoping for here.
They wanted to have anothernightmare before Christmas, let's
say not going to happen here.
And then he made the type of movie thatI personally think he should have done
more of the whole entire way through.

(54:00):
He made a low budget biographical filmcalled Big Eyes, starring Amy Adams
and And this is the story of MargaretKeene, who made those famous paintings
of the children with the big eyes.
Well, actually, her husband wastaking credit for it the whole time.
And it was the case, this court casethat ensued where she proved that she had

(54:21):
been the artist the whole entire time.
Most outlandish aspects of the court casewere not in the movie for some reason.
They thought it would be too over the top.
And yet the biographical elementsare done more fantastically.
Seems like the film in generaljust is not well thought out.
And it's unfortunate because Ithink that if this thing had hit

(54:41):
and it didn't lose money, by theway, it was modestly successful.
But if this thing had been a bigger hit,I feel like Burton would have taken more
chances on these smaller type of films.
This is a 10 million production.
So, this is him.
Trying to see if he can get moreautonomy by working at a smaller scale.
And when that doesn't work, he goesand does the book adaptation for Miss

(55:03):
Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.
And this is an absolutely terrible film.
There's actually a pretty interestingtime travel element to the
story, which I wasn't expecting.
There's so much CGI in this film.
The ending is absolutely terrible.
You'll forget seeing this film assoon as you finish watching it.
It's This is also a series of books.
They obviously were hoping to turnthis into another YA franchise.

(55:26):
It didn't work out, mostly becauseof the failure of this first film.
It's not terrible.
Eva Green is here yet again, who is a bitof his goth femme fatale muse, although
she's the hero, heroine here in this film.
Three years after that, he went back toDisney to make yet another one of these
re imaginings of their classics, Dumbo.

(55:47):
Now, I've only seen this film one time.
I don't think I've seenit all the way through.
I watched it with my daughter.
She was very young at the time,and she loved the Dumbo character
and loved to watch him fly around.
And it's very sweet, the relationshipwith the mother, that whole aspect of it.
So I don't hate this filmthe way other people do.
It's mostly forgettable.
It again feels like someone doingan Instagram filter, the Tim Burton

(56:11):
Instagram filter, rather than himsincerely vested in the material.
I don't hate this movie theway so many other people do,
and it didn't lose much money.
As a matter of fact, it probably made alittle bit of money, but certainly less
than other Disney adaptations had done.
It has a great cast.
You have Eva Green, you have ColinFarrell, you have Michael Keaton The
special effects are pretty convincing.

(56:32):
The elephant's pretty convincing.
And maybe it's just my memory ofwatching this with my daughter,
I didn't hate this film at all.
But it's not only the fact that peopledo hate this film, Burton apparently
had such a horrible experienceof making this film with Disney.
Something that, once again, I didnot pick up on in watching the film.
Maybe I need to watch itagain with clearer eyes.
That he basically nolonger wanted to direct.

(56:54):
He pretty much wanted to quit.
He just was unsatisfiedwith the experience.
And he was rejuvenated, to alarge extent, when they brought
him in to direct and produce theNetflix Wednesday Addams Series.
Which he will also be producing anddirecting elements of or episodes of
the second series, which is upcoming.

(57:15):
But it was the first time he wasworking in television and he really
did enjoy this and they gave him alot of creative freedom and it re
energized his passion for making films.
In my personal opinion, I only everwatched the first two episodes of
Wednesday only watched him because ofthe phenomenal success of the series.
I could not get into it It was just toomuch geared for teenage girls I think

(57:36):
but worse than that for me was that itdidn't feel like tim burton directing
it felt like tim burton It really didfeel once again like the tim burton
instagram filter But regardless of myopinion of it, it was an enormous success.
And of course, that rejuvenatedhis interest in making the
Beetlejuice film, the sequel,which of course has come out now.
And I do hope, like I mentioned,he brings in all these elements.
He brought in Wednesday Adams.

(57:57):
He brought in the doomed teenromance from that series.
He brought in the aesthetics ofthe original Beetlejuice, and of
course, a direct sequel to it.
He brought in the flashback Gothic horrorfilms of Sleepy Hollow and the prologue
of Dark Shadows to make this elements ofthat in this film as well So he's tying
in almost like winking at his entirefilmography in this new Beetlejuice

(58:22):
Beetlejuice film And I do hope that thisis a rejuvenation for him because other
than like this once again this almostcliched style which has become This
goth style for a generation like it'swatching like the black parade video by
my chemical romance or something It'sbeen a generic style for so long for this
populist goth Styling which he createdand now has become almost an anchor to

(58:47):
his career I do hope that maybe now he'sat a point where he is able to bring
some new ideas to His upcoming films.
I do not know what hisnext film is going to be.
This film is going to bea very successful film.
It'll make four or 500 millionon a relatively modest budget.
So he'll be able to makewhatever he wants to make next.
He has rarely made afilm that's lost money.

(59:09):
Even the ones that arenot very well respected.
have made money, so probably stillhas carte blanche in Hollywood
to make anything he wants.
Now, will he find something thathe's intrigued by that benefits
from his aesthetic choices?
I don't know.
Remains to be seen.
He is still one of the most uniqueauteurs of this era, and I do hope that

(59:31):
he continues to Make interesting films.
He hasn't made many interesting films inabout 10 years now and even Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice is fun But it's still notgoing to be on his long list of classic
films I mean you have that first 7 8 filmstretch and then for me throw big fish
in there and that's pretty much it CorpseBride maybe Corpse Bride That's about it.

(59:55):
So he hasn't added anything to thatlist Yet, but I think Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice at least shows that he hasthe interest in trying once again He
still has a long career ahead of him.
I'm sure and he's very prolific He churnsout a film every couple of years So I
would expect to see more from him andprobably right after the next season of
Wednesday We'll probably have anotherTim Burton film on the way I have reviews

(01:00:18):
for all of these films all of his filmson letterbox So do follow me there if
you don't follow me already Check theshow notes for the link and I do hope
to have another episode out to you laterthis week You I won't tell you what the
topic is going to be because if I don'tget around to recording it, I don't
want to make promises I can't keep.
So this is a long episode becausehe has had a very long and prolific
career, but I hope you enjoyed it.

(01:00:38):
Go check out one of those Burton films.
Most of them are available to streamright now, and I'll talk to you soon.