Tim Burton spoke to a generation with his offbeat films. The filmmaker was a rarity because he could take his dominant themes of alienation and outcasts and appeal to wide audiences despite having one foot in the imagery of the macabre. Although he dabbled in Disney films, Burton returns to form with his Netflix series, Wednesday, as well as revisiting one of his beloved 80’s hits, Beetlejuice with an upcoming sequel.
Burton has recently spoken with BFI about working on the Addams Family spin-off. When asked if he’ll return to direct the second season of Wednesday, Burton responded, “I mentally put stuff on hold until all the strikes are over. I can edit and do things I can do, but until the veil is lifted, then things get back into it. But yeah, I’ll be involved in some [way]. I’m not quite sure, because everything has stopped at the moment.” Burton had brought his star, Jenna Ortega over to Beetlejuice 2 after enjoying working with her on the show, “She’s one of the most aware, not only as an actress, but everything, around the camera, the set. She’s a very special talent. And she’s done a lot of horror movies, which I love too. That gave her a special place in my heart. ‘Oh, you’re doing another horror. Good.'”
After this past summer’s infamous superhero film, The Flash, brought back Burton’s iconic Michael Keaton Batman, one surprise the movie also had up its sleeve was a cameo by his jettisoned version of Superman that featured Nicolas Cage in the role. BFI asked if he now regrets putting in the time to the canceled project, “No, I don’t have regrets. I will say this: when you work that long on a project and it doesn’t happen, it affects you for the rest of your life. Because you get passionate about things, and each thing is an unknown journey, and it wasn’t there yet. But it’s one of those experiences that never leaves you, a little bit.”
He continues in a response to the studio resurrecting his vision for a cameo, “But also it goes into another AI thing, and this is why I think I’m over it with the studio. They can take what you did, Batman or whatever, and culturally misappropriate it, or whatever you want to call it. Even though you’re a slave of Disney or Warner Brothers, they can do whatever they want. So in my latter years of life, I’m in quiet revolt against all this.”