Rickman's Caterpillar Revealed!

All of the principal characters from Alice in Wonderland -- including the Caterpillar voiced by Alan Rickman -- are displayed in this lovely new article. Johnny Depp and Linda Woolverton (who wrote the screenplay) also provide a few enthusiastic words at the bottom of the pages:



EDIT: /Film has some details on the origin of this scan.

All Time Low to Record Song for "Alice"

The band All Time Low are about to record a song for Alice in Wonderland, according to one interview:

They will have a song on the soundtrack to the upcoming Tim Burton movie Alice. They are about to go in the studio to record it. I still have to transcribe my interview but I think its called Painted Flowers. I will let you guys know for sure later today when I go back over the recording.

More information to come in the near future!

Burton, Depp Attend White House Halloween Festivities

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that Tim Burton and Johnny Depp were among the special attendees at the White House's big Halloween festival for children from Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia schools this year. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michele Obama and many others handed out candy to over 2,600 trick-or-treaters. Burton and Depp were among several celebrities who attended for various charities. The event was partly aimed at honoring military families.

No photos of Depp or Burton are available, but check out a few from the party below:

"9" DVD Details and Sweepstakes

The DVD and Blu-ray of Shane Acker's 9 are currently scheduled to be released in North America on December 29th, 2009 (though it's possible that it may be released earlier to maximize on holiday season sales).

The DVD will contain the following special features:

- Audio Commentary by Director Shane Acker, Animation Director Joe Ksander, Head of Story Ryan O’Loughlin, Editor Nick Kenway
- 9 (the original short)
- 9 – The Long and the Short of It Featurette
- The Look of 9 Featurette
- Acting Out Featurette

The Blu-ray version will include the same bonus materials, as well as:

- On Tour with Shane Acker
- BD-Live
- U-Control
- My Scenes Sharing


As part of the upcoming home video release of 9, there will be a massive sweepstakes competition: Universal Studios Home Entertainment will be offering fans the opportunity to win up to $100,000.

Starting November 18th and until December 29th, the distributor will be giving away numerous prizes, including HDTVs, Netbooks and Blu-ray players (two apiece to winners). Universal will also be distributing a $100,000 check to just one lucky winner. The intent of the prize is for the winner to use that money in some way to better the world, such as a donation to charities.

Willem Dafoe as Batman?

An interesting bit of film history: Willem Dafoe told MTV News that he was approached to play Batman in Burton's 1989 movie.

It's an ancient rumor, but Dafoe was straight up: "Very early, they talked to me about playing Batman," he said. "I hate to spread these things because unless you remember it well, you're stoking the fires of bullshit," he continued, "But I remember. I've had my brush with these things."

Happy Halloween from Tim Burton and Facebook

Have a Facebook account? Then you can send a personalized Happy Halloween greeting card featuring classic or new Tim Burton artwork!:

Pre-Order "The Art of Tim Burton" Book

From TimBurton.com:

Available for pre-order this November - The Art of Tim BurtonStandard and Deluxe Edition books!

The Art of Tim Burton is the definitive compilation of forty years of Tim Burton's artistry, including film concepts and hundreds of illustrations from his personal archives, edited under the creative guidance of Burton himself. This comprehensive 434 page book is grouped into thirteen chapters that examine common themes in Burton's work, from his fascination with clowns to his passion for misunderstood monsters, to his delight in the oddities of people. Many of Burton's friends and collaborators offer their thoughts, insight and anecdotes about Tim Burton's style and artistic approach to life.

Artwork from the following films and projects are included in this book: Alice in Wonderland (2010), Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Corpse Bride (both 2005), Big Fish (2003), Planet of the Apes (2001), Sleepy Hollow, (1999), Mars Attacks! (1996), Ed Wood (1994), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), Batman Returns (1992), Edward Scissorhands (1990), Family Dog (1987), Batman (1989), Beetlejuice (1988), Pee-Wee's Big Adventure (1985), Frankenweenie (1984), Vincent (1982), and Hansel & Gretel (1982). The book also contains additional drawings from his illustrated book of poetry The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories (1997), and from The World of Stainboy web shorts (2000).

Text By: Leah Gallo, Design by: Holly Kempf, Edited by: Derek Frey, Leah Gallo & Holly Kempf

*PLUS*

Personal text contributions by friends and fellow creatives including:

Allison Abbate, Colleen Atwood, John August, Rick Baker, Helena Bonham Carter, Felicity Dahl, Johnny Depp, Danny Devito, Danny Elfman, Carlos Grangel, Ray Harryhausen, Martin Landau, Rick Heinrichs, Christopher Lee, Lindsay Macgowan, Shane Mahan, Ian Mackinnon, Alex Mcdowell, Victoria Price, Ken Ralston, Paul Reubens, Deep Roy, Winona Ryder, and Richard Zanuck.

Pre-orders will be available this November.

For more information please register in the private gallery at TimBurton.com!

MoMA Art Gala with Depp and Bonham Carter

IndieWire reports that New York’s Museum of Modern Art will host a gala dinner November 17th in honor of film director Tim Burton, with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter serving as "co-chairs" of the event along with Disney's Robert Iger, Willow Bay and David & Julia Koch. The evening will highlight Burton's 27-year-long directorial career, including his next feature, Alice in Wonderland. The benefit will support the museum's ability to continue to acquire work for MoMA’s cinema collection.

"Nightmare" Returns in 3D

The annual two-week run of The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D will be returning to theaters this Friday!

Burton's Message to Australians

Tim Burton provided a very brief personal message to Australian fans. It looks like he might be coming down to Melbourne for his retrospective art exhibition at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in June 2010. Video from The Age.

This is the same comprehensive exhibition that will show at MoMA in New York City in November this year.

ACMI director Tony Sweeney said the venue was among only three in the world to host the exhibition.

"Burton's amazing catalogue of work, and his inspirational artistry has garnered him an international audience of fans and he has influenced a generation of young artists across the moving image art spectrum," said Sweeney.

Art Exhibition Coming to Melbourne

Good news for you Australian Burton fans who can't make it to New York -- the MoMA exhibition chronicling Tim Burton's career will travel to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image in Melbourne, The Age reports.

It will bring together more than 700 examples of rare drawings, paintings, photographs and puppets.

The exhibition will run from June 24th to October 10th next year.

Producer Abbate Tells Few "Frankenweenie" Secrets

Animation veteran Allison Abbate gave a few bits of information on the stop-motion adaptation of Frankenweenie, which she is producing.

Abbate told HitFix.com that production will commence in early 2010, likely in the spring. The production time frame is "two years", said the producer, and will hopefully be released around or before Halloween 2011.

Previous reports stated that the film would be shot in stereoscopic 3D. But Abbate now says that that idea is actually still up in the air. Executive producer and Disney veteran Don Hahn and others have stated that the film will also be shot in black and white, but Abbate was more hesitant. "Maybe," she said. "That's one of the ideas that is being put up. I think it would be really cool." It might be a hard sell for a Disney animated film. But neither the 3D nor black and white possibilities have been entirely ruled out yet.


A still from the live-action short film Frankenweenie from 1984.

Abbate remained secretive, noting that Tim Burton is working on several films. "He's got to get through 'Alice [in Wonderland' first]," she said, and Burton will also be directing a cinematic version of Dark Shadows.

But the producer did confirm that the film will be entirely stop-motion animated. (Although a few CG or traditional cel animated elements as seen in Corpse Bride are possible, we're guessing.)

Abbate is also a producer on the stop-motion The Fantastic Mr. Fox, directed by Wes Anderson and based on the Roald Dahl book of the same name, as well as Brad Bird's The Iron Giant and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride in the past. She was also an artistic coordinator on The Nightmare Before Christmas, her first assignment on a Tim Burton film.

Frankenweenie will be shot at Three Mills Studio in London, CinemaBlend.com reports, just like The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Anderson's stop-motion film was also made on a similar two-year time frame.

Hathaway Talks Lewis Carroll, "Wonderland"

Anne Hathaway talks about her role in Alice in Wonderland and her fascination with Lewis Carroll's work.

Interview with Caroline Thompson

Viceland has a fascinating interview with writer Caroline Thompson where she discusses her work for Tim Burton and the film she almost made with Michael Jackson. Enjoy!

Sheen's "Inner Rabbit"

Michael Sheen, who plays the role of the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, recently had an interview with Collider, in which he discussed his upcoming projects. Here's the segment on Alice:

How do you find your inner white rabbit?

Michael Sheen: Everyone has an inner white fluffy animal. It’s such an iconic character that I didn’t feel like I should break the mold too much. I sort of just went with it. It’s a great character and a great story. “Alice in Wonderland” and “Peter Pan”were the first stories growing up that had a huge impact on me and have stayed with me ever since. So to be part of Tim Burton’s version is just a dream come true.

Since those lines are so classic, did you approach it like you would a “Hamlet”?

Michael Sheen: As a sort of cultural iconography, you know you are sort of treading that path. But Tim’s version of the story is not the original version. It’s everything you’d want in an “Alice in Wonderland” but it’s slightly off kilter as Tim Burton is one to do. It’s not like I was doing the same thing as has been done before.

Tim Burton's Fashion Shoot

In recognition of his retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, Tim Burton has designed some new looks for Harper's Bazaar Halloween photoshoot. The images include a few references to some of Burton's films and art (and Tim faces his fears wearing the body of a cartoon clown. He's also dressed as Sandy Claws). Photographs by Tim Walker:

Burton Appears in Upcoming Documentary

Don Hahn's upcoming documentary, Waking Sleeping Beauty, is about the story of the so-called Disney "animation renaissance" that took place between 1984 and 1994. Many stars of the modern world of animation are featured in the documentary: John Lasseter, Jeffrey Katzenberg, John Musker, Glen Keane, Don Bluth, Roy Disney, Michael Eisner, and Tim Burton -- who appears briefly as a young animator miserably working on The Fox and the Hound.

You can see 11 video clips of the upcoming documentary at this link at CinemaBlend.com. (Burton is in the second clip for a few seconds at a rather amusing event.) No release date is announced yet, but it was most likely be released in theaters in 2010. The film is rated PG and is 86 minutes long.

Don Hahn, a producer at Disney, directed this documentary, and helped bring The Nightmare Before Christmas back to theaters in a new 3D presentation. Currently, he is an executive producer on the upcoming animated version of Frankenweenie.

It's Alive! "Frankenweenie" Rises from the Dead!

Tim Burton's stop-motion animated, feature-length adaptation of his 1984 live-action short Frankenweenie is coming! And executive producer Don Hahn has provided some details at Disney's D23 Expo to SciFi Wire:

1. It will be in black and white. An animated movie in black and white? Was this not a hard sell? "It was and it wasn't," Hahn said. "I think now, with Tim working at the top of his craft, the top of his game, on movies like Alice in Wonderland, I think Dick Cook really felt like if you're going to take a risk on anybody, why can't it be Tim Burton? A Tim Burton movie in black and white based on Frankenstein, how cool is that? Dick was very supportive of it." [Dick Cook was the chairman of the Walt Disney Co. until a few days ago. It is unclear whether his abrupt departure from the company will affect the film.]


Don Hahn has been in the animation industry for a while.


2. The new script will include more Frankenstein and more of the dog. And the screenplay is finished, Hahn confirmed at the press conference. "It's Frankenstein mixed with a boy-and-his-dog story, very much like the original one," Hahn said in an exclusive interview after the conference. "What's great is Tim grew up in Southern California, in Burbank, and the movie itself kind of takes that California suburban look at a monster movie story. I think that's what we're trying to do."


3. The Frankenstein family tree is growing. Bigger movie means more characters. "There are a lot of great new characters in it, really great new characters," Hahn said in the exclusive interview. But who will be among the cast? "It's the ensemble. It's the Tim Burton ensemble." Many of the actors from Burton's 1984 short film are still alive, such as Shelley Duvall, but which collaborators of Burton's may be on board? "The neat thing about Tim is he can pretty much call up anybody he needs and they'll be happy to work with him," Hahn said.




4. Now Tim Burton can do what he wants. Disney wasn't very happy with the original Frankenweenie, deeming it too scary for children. But now, with Burton's bankability, Disney is letting the creative filmmaker unleashed (relatively speaking). "Unlike Tim's recent stop-motion movies, he's designing the characters himself," Hahn said in this exclusive interview. "So you really get kind of the hand of the artist in it and get to see Tim's work itself. It's Tim Burton at his best. I think that's why he leapt at it, because when he started out making movies, it was his first choice for a live-action movie. I think he felt like, 'Gee, I wish I could've made a feature back then.' So now to come back and revisit the material is pretty fun for him, I think." Indeed, Burton has been wanting to make a feature version of Frankenweenie for 25 years -- a quarter of a century.


5. It has begun. And it's set for a 2011 release. "I'm not sure it's a 90-minute film," Hahn said. Burton and his team have already built maquettes. "We're underway on it, and I think the most important thing is it has to be a good movie," Hahn said. "So if it's not ready for 2011, then we'll let it drift into the next year, but we're up and running already." Like Corpse Bride before it, Frankenweenie is entering production in London. "The primary reason to go there is Tim lives there, and there's a great group of talent over there also that is really into stop-motion animation," Hahn said. (So a 2012 release date is not unrealistic.)


More exciting news to come in the future! Stay tuned!

Burton Makes Special Appearance

Tim Burton made a special appearance at Disney's D23 Expo on September 11th, promoting Alice in Wonderland. See more pictures here. He briefly mentioned Alice in Wonderland and gave a bit of official news on Frankenweenie...


Tim Burton and Dick Cook, Chairman of the Walt Disney Studios

When Burton was asked why he wanted to make an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice, Burton replied, right in front of Disney big cheese Cook, "I never saw one... I know you already made one... that did justice to the material."


Tim Burton and fellow director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, A Christmas Carol)

Burton confirmed that a stop-motion, feature-length adaptation of his 1984 short film was in the making, and is currently set to be released in 2012.

Burton on His Films and Art

The Wrap's Eric Kohn recently interviewed Tim Burton. The director discussed a myriad of topics, including his greatly anticipated Alice in Wonderland and feature-length Frankenweenie, the forthcoming exhibition of his artwork at the Museum of Modern Art, issues with the studio system, and his past classics:

The trailer for Alice in Wonderland leaked online a day early. How did you feel about that?
I didn't like that. Somebody f---ed that one up. It just shows you how easy … it's like, "Oh, sorry, I just pushed that nuke button." That's the problem. All this stuff is so available. I still come from the olden days where you like to see a movie and be surprised. Then you want to know something about it -- as opposed to getting everything front-loaded. A movie just loses its whole mystique.

The art of the trailer has become an entirely separate creative process.
Well, yeah. I've always had my theories, and my theories are always different from the marketing people.

At any rate, the trailer indicates an appropriately vibrant take on the story. Is this a palate-cleanser after the grimness of Sweeney Todd?
Yeah, it's a different palate. Also, the Alice imagery has been around. For me, it wasn't so much the books. I was aware of it from other aspects of popular culture, whether it was in music or other images. It was just about trying to tell it in a way so it's not a series of weird events, like in the book.

Are you staying away from the acid subtext?
No, no, not so much that. I'm just trying to keep away from the structure that the other [interpretations] suffer from, the episodic stuff. A passive little girl wandering around thinking everything is weird.

It's weird talking about Alice when I have so much left to do on it. It's a bit creepy.

Audiences tend to bring a certain baggage to the theater when the movie involves a familiar brand, which many of your movies do.
They're harder to do for that reason. Everybody looks at the white rabbit or the Cheshire Cat or the Mad Hatter and has an idea of what they should be. With known icons, you're always going to piss off somebody.

Like with Watchmen?
That's the thing: You never know what you're going to get. With something like Watchmen, it's known on one level. It's like a great novel. You have to leave something out, somebody's favorite part. Somebody will think the essence has been sucked out of it. That's just the nature of tackling something known.

Sweeney Todd was a quintessential example of your darker side. Why didn't it do better business?
I didn't know what kind of response it would get. It seemed to do OK. I don't really know. I never know. Every movie I've ever done, I never could predict a response.

But if anyone could turn such a morose story into a massive commercial property, you're the guy.
Yeah, but if you look at the “Harry Potter” movies, they've gotten darker. For 20 years, I’ve had to fight against the whole "dark" issue. Now it's the "norm." I've tried to keep my stuff in there.

Do you feel like studios try to dumb down your ideas?
That's always the case, especially when you're dealing with a bigger budget. That's fair enough from the studios’ point of view. It's a big investment. I don't try to pay too much attention to that. It's a bit abstract anyway.

You'll have a huge exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. Does seeing your entire career surveyed make it seem as though you've achieved your creative potential?
I hope not. We'll see. Am I going to go back and remake Pee-Wee's Big Adventure? I don't think so. I feel like I've been pretty pure about that. There's been a lot of pressure to do, like, a sequel to Nightmare Before Christmas. I'm just not going to do it.

But you've talked about turning your early short film Frankenweenie into a feature.
I might do a low-budget, stop-motion movie. Something I couldn't do in the short. It would be nice to capture the spirit of my original drawings.

Like Corpse Bride?
No, less than that. I'd do it in black and white.

What about all those Broadway musical rumors?
Yeah, I got approached to do a Broadway version of Batman. I couldn't quite bring myself to do that, either.


So, how did you find the time to help out as a producer on 9?
This was a few years ago. I got involved after I saw the short film [which was nominated for an Oscar in 2005]. I felt close to his design sensibility. It's different from mine, but I related to the characters and the world. Since I've been through the experience of making animated films, I just felt like I could help him keep all the outside evils away.


Do you still watch a lot of animated shorts?
When I was first in animation, it was like a dying art form. But if you're an animator, there are more opportunities now than ever. Also, it’s using all the media.

A few years ago, they declared cel animation dead again, but now I'm hearing about some cel-animated films. I think that whole thing, "Oh, now we're only going to do computers, or we're only going to do this or that"... those barriers have been broken through.