Ready to make a grand return with “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”, the sequel to the unforgettable 1980s cult film due in theaters on September 5, American director Tim Burton is preparing his audiences for what, by all accounts, will be another title not to be missed.

Always with his unmistakable style, made above all of references to gothic atmospheres and the grotesque, the director has marked the history of the seventh art by tackling delicate themes such as marginalization and loneliness, without ever depriving himself of a taste for provocation and irony. After having created timeless titles such as “Edward Scissorhands”, “Ed Wood” and “Sleepy Hollow”, Burton is now preparing to take stock of his career and set a course for the near future. In a recent interview with Variety, the director states that he retired to private life during the COVID 19 pandemic and that he resumed directing thanks to the television series “Wednesday”, which reawakened the passion and determination dormant after a very delicate period : “That made me reconnect with the creation of things. We went to Romania and it felt like a healthy creative camp, everything went so well”.

The good feelings experienced on the set of “Wednesday” and the return to the big screen with the sequel to “Beetlejuice” allowed Burton to avoid his possible retirement, which he would have reflected on concretely during the making of “Dumbo” in 2019: “Honestly, after Dumbo, I didn’t really know what to do. I thought it could be the end. I could retire or become… Well, I couldn’t go back to being an animator, that’s a closed chapter. But this film gave me new energy. It reinforced the feeling that for me it’s important to do what I want because then everyone will benefit from it”.

In addition to the return of the irreverent bio-exorcist in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” played once again by the exceptional Michael Keaton, Burton recalled in the interview his experiences with “Batman” and “Batman Returns.” On the subject, the director stated that at the time there was no concept of “franchise” and that the two films followed an experimental approach, different from the most common way of making a superhero film: “You didn’t have that kind of feedback from the studio, and being in England you were even further away. We could just focus on the film, and not think about those things that they think about now before you even think about them.”

The birth of “Batman Returns” was instead due to the director’s interest in the characters of Catwoman and The Penguin: “And that’s when we started hearing the word franchise and the studio started saying: what is that black stuff coming out of The Penguin’s mouth? And that was the first time the cold wind of that situation reached me”.

As for the possibility that the director will return to direct a comic book movie, it seems that for now there are no doubts on the matter: "At the moment, I would say no. As I said, I came at things from different points of view, so never say never to anything. But, at the moment, it's not something that interests me".

His long-time colleague Michael Keaton also had some good thoughts on Burton's contribution to the world of superheroes, stating that the comic book genre owes a lot to the work done over the years by the filmmaker. As expressed in an interview with GQ, the actor claims: "Tim deserves a lot of credit. He changed everything. There probably wouldn't be a Marvel Universe, or a DC Universe without Tim Burton. With him that world was questioned and questioned".

John Scanu

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