NEW PROJECTS?!

Reuters and the Hollywood Reporter have announced that Tim Burton has signed on with the Walt Disney Co. to make two new film projects: Alice in Wonderland and a full-length, stop-motion version of Frankenweenie.

Alice in Wonderland, based on the original Lewis Carroll tale, will be shot with a combination of live-action and motion-capture technology. Shooting will begin early 2008. Rumors about Burton adapting the story have been circulating on the Internet for years, but this is certainly the closest thing to an official announcement that has appeared thus far.

The second project announced in the article, also in collaboration with the Walt Disney Co., Frankenweenie, is an adaptation of Burton's very own live-action short film he made while at Disney in 1984. This was the film that made Paul Reubens discover the young director and asked him to make his first feature-length film, Pee-wee's Big Adventure, in 1985. Dick Cook, chairman of Walt Disney Pictures, hinted that a prominent filmmaker in recent stop-motion features would be working with Disney in the near future. This is likely that film. In the book Burton on Burton, director Tim Burton said that he felt that Frankenweenie could have been a full-length feature film.

More details to come in the near future! Stay tuned!