Tim Burton's Dark Shadows

[Doctor Jones]

I would love to see Tim Burton work on an original project that doesn't scream "Tim Burton".

Big Fish and Ed Wood. There some Burton elements, but compared to his others, they feel a bit different to me. Especially Big Fish.

 

[The Shape]

^^ Like what?

Something that's not an adaptation of something else...

 

[The Shape]

Big Fish and Ed Wood. There some Burton elements, but compared to his others, they feel a bit different to me. Especially Big Fish.

And I enjoyed those, but it's really been awhile. I just feel like after Mars Attacks!, Sleepy Hollow, Sweeney Todd, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Planet of the Apes, Alice in Wonderland . . . are we not seeing a pattern here?

I think it'd be a shame for him to be completely pigeon-hole himself with these completely gothic projects. I'm ready for something interesting we haven't seen before (Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood), even if it comes out "Tim Burtonish".

 

[Octoberist]

Object to admit: aim a little excite for this.

 

[Spider-ManHero12]

Something that's not an adaptation of something else...

Edward Scissorhands....

 

[Octoberist]

But that was 21 years ago.

 

[DACrowe]

Big Fish and Ed Wood. There some Burton elements, but compared to his others, they feel a bit different to me. Especially Big Fish.

Big Fish was based on a short story and Ed Wood was a biopic, a tongue-in-cheek one granted, but a biopic nonetheless.

For completely original concepts he's DIRECTED there's Frankenweenie (still a semi-adaptation of the 1931 Frankenstein film which was an adaptation of the book), Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. That's it.

HIs best films (Sweeney Todd, Ed Wood and Big Fish) were all based off something else. So, I am excited for this.

 

[Octoberist]

i think this is the first time in a while that a movie has a character from the past who gets frozen and wakes up in a previous modern decade, in this case the 70's. That's cool. Normally the would wake up in the year of the film's release. It makes it less convienent and keeps it fresh.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Big Fish was based on a short story and Ed Wood was a biopic, a tongue-in-cheek one granted, but a biopic nonetheless.

For completely original concepts he's DIRECTED there's Frankenweenie (still a semi-adaptation of the 1931 Frankenstein film which was an adaptation of the book), Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands. That's it.

HIs best films (Sweeney Todd, Ed Wood and Big Fish) were all based off something else. So, I am excited for this.

I would say his best films are Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and Batman. I really enjoyed Sweeney Todd, but it lacks a little of the life and energy or those earlier films. Big Fish doesn't appeal to me at all.

I miss Burton's dark fairytale days. Burton use to be able to breath the most amazing life into a typical American suburb. Now his Wonderland and amazing Chocolate Factory feels as flat as anything I have seen. There is a clear difference between Burton before and after Sleepy Hollow and I would say it has little to do with the source material. He went from making atypical moody and fantastical, to making typical weird. Everything now is dark, colorless and lacking life.

He use to make confetti, now it is all deep red.

 

[Octoberist]

No love for Pee-Wee?

 

[ALP]

I LOVE Burton, certain from the 80s to the 90s. He's been more hit and miss lately. Loved Sweeney but hated Alice.

IMO... he's beginning to parody himself. Instead of doing what is the most interesting project he instead does what will make the most money and what people(more specifically kids) will expect. I still like Burton but he no longer takes risks and is pandering to the goth kids who buy every piece of merchandise he puts out.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

No love for Pee-Wee?

Oh, I love Pee-Wee. More dark fairytale. t:

For me nothing quite touches Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, and Ed Wood. Pee-Wee is in the second ground with Batman, Sweeney Todd, and Sleepy Hollow, that didn't quite hit the perfection those three did but were great.

I LOVE Burton, certain from the 80s to the 90s. He's been more hit and miss lately. Loved Sweeney but hated Alice.

IMO... he's beginning to parody himself. Instead of doing what is the most interesting project he instead does what will make the most money and what people(more specifically kids) will expect. I still like Burton but he no longer takes risks and is pandering to the goth kids who buy every piece of merchandise he puts out.

Exactly. He has become typical weird as opposed to his own special kind of crazy he use bring.

 

[The Shape]

To me, Alice in Wonderland was a sell-out movie that brought nothing exciting to the table, aside from some of the cartoonish visuals.

Hopefully, this will be a finely crafted film. I'd love to see something from him that's not overtly fantastical, though.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

To me, Alice in Wonderland was a sell-out movie that brought nothing exciting to the table, aside from some of the cartoonish visuals.

Hopefully, this will be a finely crafted film. I'd love to see something from him that's not overtly fantastical, though.

I don't think Burton does fantastical anymore. Sure he sets his stories in the fantasy realms, but the stories themselves aren't fantastical anymore.

 

[The Shape]

I don't think Burton does fantastical anymore. Sure he sets his stories in the fantasy realms, but the stories themselves aren't fantastical anymore.

Please try to briefly explain the story of Alice in Wonderland without it sounding fantastical.

Even Edward Scissorhands had a fantastical element but it was grounded in a quasi-reality that made it work. I know that fantasy and gothic tales are Burton's thing. I'm just saying it'd be cool to see what he'd do with something else.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Please try to briefly explain the story of Alice in Wonderland without it sounding fantastical.

Even Edward Scissorhands had a fantastical element but it was grounded in a quasi-reality that made it work. I know that fantasy and gothic tales are Burton's thing. I'm just saying it'd be cool to see what he'd do with something else.

Edward is Scissorhands and Beetlejuice are fantastical. That is what makes them brilliant. Alice in Wonderland is a girl with too little imagination copping with her transition to adulthood.

But I think you missed my point. I am not saying Burton isn't trying to create the fantastical, my point is that his change of direction to a more common Gothic fantasy style has taken the fantastic out of his work. He has lost his distinct style.

 

[The Shape]

Edward is Scissorhands and Beetlejuice are fantastical. That is what makes them brilliant.

I know. I never said anything bad about them. Edward Scissorhands is among my all time top 5.

Alice in Wonderland is a girl with too little imagination copping with her transition to adulthood.

But I think you missed my point. I am not saying Burton isn't trying to create the fantastical, my point is that his change of direction to a more common Gothic fantasy style has taken the fantastic out of his work. He has lost his distinct style.

No, that is the premise of Alice in Wonderland. The theme. The story, or plot, is set partially within a fantasy world and is comprised completely of fantasy elements...just like nearly all of the other Burton works/reimaginings that I mentioned.

Maybe you mean "fantastic" as in excellent? If so, then I agree that some of his recent works have lost that particular magic that usually makes his films so great. He still has his very distinct style, but all of his expensive adaptations are beginning to blend together.

 

[DarthSkywalker]

No, that is the premise of Alice in Wonderland. The theme. The story, or plot, is set partially within a fantasy world and is comprised completely of fantasy elements...just like nearly all of the other Burton works/reimaginings that I mentioned.

I actually kind of disagree that Alice is like his other films. It is one of the few where what is seen can be doubted. There very well may not be a Wonderland.

Maybe you mean "fantastic" as in excellent? If so, then I agree that some of his recent works have lost that particular magic that usually makes his films so great. He still has his very distinct style, but all of his expensive adaptations are beginning to blend together.

Burton no longer makes whimsical dark fairytales. There use to be little rhyme or reason for why things were the way they were, they just were. That is why a man could have scissors for hands and the dead spent time on Mars.

I don't think he really has a distinct style anymore. The look of his films are not the same as those he made before Sleepy Hollow. It is like he went from a pastel world, to a dim and dark one. It gets worse and worse the more he depends on CG.

 

[Spider-ManHero12]

While Alice may not have been his greatest achievement, I don't think it was horrible by any means. Quite frankly, I think he still has his edge, he just hasn't had the absoloute "right" project in a while.

 

[DACrowe]

I would say his best films are Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood and Batman. I really enjoyed Sweeney Todd, but it lacks a little of the life and energy or those earlier films. Big Fish doesn't appeal to me at all.

I miss Burton's dark fairytale days. Burton use to be able to breath the most amazing life into a typical American suburb. Now his Wonderland and amazing Chocolate Factory feels as flat as anything I have seen. There is a clear difference between Burton before and after Sleepy Hollow and I would say it has little to do with the source material. He went from making atypical moody and fantastical, to making typical weird. Everything now is dark, colorless and lacking life.

He use to make confetti, now it is all deep red.

I LOVE Burton, certain from the 80s to the 90s. He's been more hit and miss lately. Loved Sweeney but hated Alice.

IMO... he's beginning to parody himself. Instead of doing what is the most interesting project he instead does what will make the most money and what people(more specifically kids) will expect. I still like Burton but he no longer takes risks and is pandering to the goth kids who buy every piece of merchandise he puts out.

I disagree on Sweeney. He did something very new there....a musical. And not just any musical, but master Sondheim's most masterful masterpiece ( ). But unlike almost every other director, he wasn't afraid to stray from the stage production for his film. He reimagined the same music and story less as a dark comedy (though he did have dark, pitch-black, comedy in his version) but as a classic horror movie that underlined the tragedy of the story, the revenger's tragedy, in crimson red. That is a good thing for this story.

It is imo the darkest film he has ever done that has an unrelentingly bleak and depressing ending. It looks like an early classic Universal horror film from the 1930s or even 1920s. Lon Chaney Sr., Boris Karloff or Peter Lorre could be skulking around. In fact if it wasn't fore the gore, singing and depressing nature of it, Karloff could have played this iteration of Sweeney.

He had never done something like that before (Sleepy Hollow was more Hammer than Universal/silent expressionism) and to tackle something so drearily tragic in a musical setting with actors who've never sung before was highly ambitious and paid off in spades. I think Sweeney Todd was his last passion project since Big Fish. For me, it is his best after Ed Wood. He pushed himself to make something truly special that time.

To be fair he then followed it up with Alice in Wonderland (yawn). But I think Sweeney was an effort meant for him and is better than almost his entire resume to date.

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

Jonny Lee Miller joins Tim Burton's 'Dark Shadows'

Jonny Lee Miller has signed up to the cast of Tim Burton's upcoming Dark Shadows.

The actor will take on the role of a layabout member of the Collins family, who occupy a rambling estate once owned by cursed patriarch-turned-vampire Barnabas, played by Johnny Depp, Collider reports.

He will join Michelle Pfeiffer, Eva Green, Chloe Moretz and Burton regular Helena Bonham Carter.

Warner Bros. teased more details of the plot, which is inspired by the cult US programme of the same name created by Dan Curtis, which ran between 1966 and 1971.

Depp's character will wake up in 1972 after being buried alive by a scorned witch in 1752, only to find that the Collins clan are divided and in therapy.

Burton is helming from a script by Pride and Prejudice and Zombies novelist Seth Grahame-Smith.

Dark Shadows will open in cinemas on May 11, 2012.

Miller will next be seen in a Channel 4 documentary on the production of Danny Boyle's stage adaptation of Frankenstein.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/movies/news/a320406/jonny-lee-miller-joins-tim-burtons-dark-shadows.html

 

[returntovoid]

Alice Cooper Cameo in Dark Shadows?
Source:Alice Cooper June 28, 2011

Johnny Depp and Alice Cooper jammed together on stage in England, playing cooper hits "I'm Eighteen" and "School's Out" together, reports the official site for Cooper.

What brought these two together, besides their Freddy's Dead past? Perhaps Dark Shadows.

Says Cooper's site: "Johnny is in London working on the new Tim Burton movie Dark Shadows, and Alice is rumored to have a cameo part in the film as well..."

Cooper and Dark Shadows is a great fit. Who would he play? Werewolf? Vampire? Just a maniac?

http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=19743&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

 

[Spider-ManHero12]

Pretty cool news! I wonder what role he will play?

 

[Pfeiffer-Pfan]

I hope Tim Burton gets back to his Sleepy Hollow style with this film...

Everything seems to be lining up for it perfectly.

 

[returntovoid]

Pretty cool news! I wonder what role he will play?

Tim Burton's Dark Shadows will also be set in the 70's besides the 1800's.

This is ironic considering Alice Cooper became famous in the 70's, could he be playing himself?