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.