Director Tim Burton has seemingly called it quits with Disney, following his experience directing the 2019 live-action adaptation of Dumbo.
As reported by Deadline, Burton explained, "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." Additionally, Burton labeled his experience working on Dumbo as "quite autobiographical."
Burton expressed he has issues with all major studios and their respective franchises, stating, "It's gotten to be very homogenized, very consolidated. There's less room for different types of things." However, the filmmaker has never considered independent films either, He explained, "Independent film, I don't know. I've only worked mainly with studios so I never really understood what an independent film was," Burton said.
Released in 2019, the live-action adaptation of Disney's Dumbo follows a similar plot as the animated film, with a family encountering a young big-eared elephant at their traveling circus. Colin Farrell stars as Holt Farrier, the elephant handler, Michael Keaton as a coldhearted entrepreneur named V.A. Vandevere and Danny DeVito as Max Medici, the ringmaster of the circus. Other cast members include Eva Green, Alan Arkin and Nico Parker. While Dumbo didn't perform well at the box office, some praised it as Burton's best work in the past decade.
Burton and Disney
After gaining Disney's attention for Stalk of the Celery Monster, the 64-year-old director started his animator's apprenticeship at the studio. While at Disney, Burton made his first short, Vincent, a six-minute stop-motion film in black-and-white. However, Burton's 1984 short Frankenweenie did not impress Disney for its dark nature, which didn't appeal to children, and the studio subsequently fired him.
Later reissued by Walt Disney Pictures, Burton signed on to produce The Nightmare Before Christmas instead of directing due to his hectic schedule from working on Batman Returns. The director then created a feature-length version of Frankenweenie, and talks began about a potential sequel to Nightmare Before Christmas, but Burton wasn't interested in the computer animation format Disney had proposed.
Dumbo is available for streaming on Disney+.
Source: Deadline