Are Tim Burton’s Days with Disney Over?

Disney alum Tim Burton appeared on a panel at the Lumière Festival in Lyon, France, on the weekend and made some unexpected comments about his relationship with Disney. The Nightmare Before Christmas creator spoke candidly about how his partnership with Disney has evolved since his years as a young animated filmmaker, noting that the studio was now primarily focused on Marvel, Pixar, and Stars Wars franchises.

“It’s gotten to be very homogenized, very consolidated. There’s less room for different types of things,” Burton said before going on to confess he would never consider being part of 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.

Tim Burton

During the weekend’s events, the Beetlejuice director went on to say he had no plans of being part of the long-awaited sequel, Beetlejuice 2; however, the statement was walked back the following day when Burton later admitted nothing was out of the question.

Would you like to see further collaborations between the Disney studios and Tim Burton?