The one movie Tim Burton will never make: “Certain things are best left on their own”
Though he has made the odd sequel across his career, Tim Burton and his movies stand out because of their uniqueness. There is plenty of scope for more films set in the worlds of Corpse Bride, Sleepy Hollow, and Frankenweenie, but the British director has never followed up on them. Even for Alice Through the Looking Glass, the sequel to Burton’s version of Alice in Wonderland, James Bobin was brought in to direct.
Aside from Batman Returns and the recent Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Burton has mostly stayed away from his most popular movie universes. The latter of those two was made 36 years after the original, so perhaps there is hope that the gothic maestro will return to some of his older works. However, according to a conversation he had with IndieWire, there are some movies of his that are off-limits.
“There are certain films I don’t want to make a sequel to,” he admitted. He named Edward Scissorhands as one of them, saying that it “felt like a one-off thing” and he considered the book closed on that story. “I didn’t want to have a sequel for The Nightmare Before Christmas because it also felt like a one-off thing,” he continued. “Certain things are best left on their own and that for me is one of them.”
Edward Scissorhands, which came out in 1990 and starred Johnny Depp as the eponymous pointy-handed creature, was Burton’s fourth feature film as a director. Whilst he didn’t direct The Nightmare Before Christmas, the story of Jack Skellington and his quest to kidnap ‘Sandy Claws’, he did write the story and serve as its producer. The film is technically called Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the filmmaker still has creative control over its license.
“To me, the movie is very important,” Burton told Empire of his stop-motion holiday classic. “I’ve done sequels, I’ve done other things, I’ve done reboots, I’ve done all that shit, right? I don’t want that to happen to this. It’s nice that people are maybe interested [in another one], but I’m not. I feel like that old guy who owns a little piece of property and won’t sell to the big power-plant that wants to take my land.” He then proceeded to put on an old-timey Western voice, yelling at the imaginary land-grabbers and threatening to shoot them. Let it never be said that Tim Burton doesn’t know how to give a good interview.
Rumours of an Edward Scissorhands sequel were fuelled by Burton saying that he wanted to work with Depp again. “I never feel like, oh, I’m going to use this and that actor,” he said of the American star, whom he hasn’t worked with since 2012’s Dark Shadows. “It usually has to be based on the project I’m working on. That’s what film is all about. It’s collaboration and bouncing ideas off the people around you.” This doesn’t sound too promising, but when asked directly if there would be another Burton-Depp joint venture, he simply stated, “I’m sure there will be.”
In an era where it seems like every big release is a sequel or a reboot, it’s admirable that Burton is willing to stick to his principles and leave the past alone. That being said, his next project is reportedly a remake of Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, so he seems to be quite happy to meddle with other people’s work. Maybe we will get those sequels after all.
