Aw, remember “Ed Wood” a.k.a. the 1994 black and white film about the titular B-movie director that’s the last great film Tim Burton made? It’s been fairly slim pickings since then Burton-quality wise and that’s excluding this year’s clamoring and obnoxious “Alice In Wonderland.”
For us, “Ed Wood” pretty much signaled the beginning of the end (ok, “Sweeney Todd” has its moments), but in a move that could be a last minute desperate plea for quality control (or one conceived by reading our site), Burton will be re-teaming with the two writers behind that wonderful film, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski.
To Burton’s credit though, ‘Wood’ is not only brilliantly written, it’s masterfully directed with a quiet and measured hand that gives the film and its performances (Johnny Depp is tremendous as is Martin Landau who received a much deserved Academy Award for his supporting turn), but we can’t help but wonder if these days are behind Burton.
Anyway, the two scribes will be penning Burton’s adaptation of “The Addams Family” which will be in polar opposition to the Disney-like live-action films made by Barry Sonnefeld in the early ’90s (the most insanely ridiculous aspect of the pictures perhaps being the “Whoomp [There It Is]” spin-off song; and yes, it’s actually a Paramount film). The film will be a stop-motion animated affair utilizing the original black-and-white New Yorker cartoons as inspiration. And how much do you want to bet that it will be in 3D?
This of course confirms Burton’s participation in the picture and like “Malficient” and “Monsterpocalypse” follows the fine tradition of his reps denying initial reports of these projects so someone else can write an absurd “confirmed” non-story. Dude made a billion dollars with a piss-poor 3D conversion film, so what do we know…
Burton has also tapped the writers to pen “Big Eyes” a new project about that he won’t be directing, but will be producing. The film will follow the story of Walter Keene, the huckster behind those famous and now kitschy painted portraits of kids with humongous eyes. His wife Margaret was the actual artist behind the paintings, and when Walter tried to pass them off as his own it lead to their divorce and a courtroom showdown. It’s a great, oddball story and it’s the kind of fresh material that Burton really needs to be chasing and we hope he does decide to direct it as well.
Will these two authors bring the dark and macabre back to his glory days? We certainly won’t put money down on it, but we’ve already weathered “Planet Of The Apes” and ‘Alice,’ it can’t possibly get any worse, can it? [Deadline]
