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Monday, March 22, 2010
Filming of Stop-Motion "Frankenweenie" Soon?
Ain't It Cool News caught Don Hahn down at the SXSW festival during a Q&A for his new documentary, Waking Sleeping Beauty (which looks at the Disney renaissance of the 1980s and early 1990s, and features Tim Burton as a young animator). Hahn will be an executive producer for Tim Burton's forthcoming Frankenweenie, and mentioned the animated film.
Harry Knowles paraphrases Don Hahn, who said that "the puppets are ready, the script is done and now that Tim Burton is clear of Alice in Wonderland... he's set to helm Frankenweenie in 3D."
Tim Burton has been wanting to adapt his live-action short film Frankenweenie for over 25 years. The stop-motion version will be released in either 2011 or 2012. Filming will take place in London.
Deadline.com has stated that Tim Burton might be directing a 3D, stop-motion animated adaptation of Charles Addams comics, The Addams Family.
Illumination Entertainment, the Universal-based family film unit headed by Chris Meledandri (who has produced Ice Age, Horton Hears a Who, and is producing the forthcoming Despicable Me and Flanimals), has acquired the underlying rights of the Addams drawings, once a staple of The New Yorker magazine. Burton is reportedly being considered as a director by the studio.
Meladandri will produce the film. Kevin Miserocchi of the Tee and Charles Addams Foundation will be executive producer. A writer will be hired shortly.
If these plans come to fruition, this new Addams Family movie will be the second stop-motion feature coming from Tim Burton. Burton is still directing his feature-length animated adaptation of Frankenweenie.
The trailer for the upcoming documentary Waking Sleeping Beauty has made its debut. The film chronicles the story of the renaissance of Disney feature animation in the 1980s and 1990s. Directed by Don Hahn (who is working on Tim Burton's upcoming animated Frankenweenie as an executive producer, and produced the 3D re-release of The Nightmare Before Christmas), the documentary includes such animation titans as John Lasseter, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Don Bluth, Michael Eisner, Roy Disney, Glen Keane, John Musker, Howard Ashman, and many more, including Tim Burton himself.
"Frankenweenie" Character and Plot Details Revealed
Casting has begun on the new stop-motion animated version of Frankenweenie. Right now, Disney is looking for voices for characters between the ages of eight and eleven years old. Bloody-Disgusting.com has provided some information from an official fax. There are a few minor SPOILERS, but it gives you a good idea of how the new film will differ from Burton's original 1984 short:
[EDGAR] A Caucasian Male 8-11 years old. Edgar is a needy little kid who wants desperately to be accepted by the cool kids in his class. Naturally a little nerdy, he gravitates to Victor and basically annoys him until he agrees to let him be his lab partner. He is more than a little gullible and is easily tricked into giving away Victor’s precious secret and unwittingly starting the whole mess with the other monsters.
[TOSHIAKI] A Japanese Male 8-11 years old. Toshiaki is the natural leader of the cool kids in Victor’s class. He is a good athlete, and an avid little league baseball player but Toshiaki has a mischievous side. He is the one that ultimately manipulates E into giving up the secret of Sparky and it is his idea to turn the other animals into monsters. He is Japanese and his monster creation is a little Godzilla lizard.
[BOB] A Caucasian Male 8-11 years old. Bob is the dumb, jockey kid. He has more brawn than brains. He follows Toshiaki and Nassor around even when it means that he has to be the one to test the home made jet pack that Toshiaki has created.
[NASSOR] A Middle-Eastern Male 8-11 years old. Nassor is the star of the little league team and just goes along with Toshiak’s plan. He is a bit more serious than the others but still doesn’t see the impending chaos when he chooses to bring his hamster mummy back to life.
[WEIRD GIRL] A Caucasian Female 8-11 years old. She has a very dark and ominous take on even the most mundane occurrences and jumps at the chance to bring some dead animals back to life.
[ELSA] A Caucasian Female 8-11 years old. Elsa is a sweet girl who likes to follow the rules and not cause too much trouble. A bit of a “goody two shoes,” she is not afraid to speak up and even corrects the teacher when he makes a mistake. She is excited about the festivities planned for the town’s Dutch Day parade and even has a solo dance number in the show.
A shooting date has not been announced yet. John August (Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) will be writing the screenplay.
To help promote MoMA’s Tim Burton retrospective, we asked Burton himself to animate the MoMA logo for a thirty-second video that would be used to promote the exhibition on television, at the Museum, and online. Tim quickly came up with a concept utilizing stop-motion animation, and he asked Allison Abbate, his producer on Corpse Bride (2005) and the upcoming full-length version of Frankenweenie, if she could help pull things together.
Tim Burton's original robot design
Abbate turned to Mackinnon & Saunders, a U.K. firm that designs and builds animation puppets, models, and maquettes and produces TV commercials and entertainment programs for children’s TV, because they had worked on past Burton projects, including Corpse Bride. Company heads Ian Mackinnon and Peter Saunders pick up the story: “For the promo, Tim had designed a cute and quirky little robot character whose job was to inflate four typically Burton-esque balloons spelling out the MoMA logo. The whole premise sounded very simple, until we found out the timescale. We had just three weeks to create the character, the balloons, animate them, and get the footage out to Los Angeles for post production.”
The robot model and storyboards
Mackinnon continues, “Tim was very keen for the whole piece to be rendered in stop motion. For the robot character this wasn’t so much of a problem, Joe Holman, one of our lead sculptor/designers, broke all records to get the character fully sculpted and broken down into his constituent elements, head, body, arms, legs ready for moulding.”
Sculptor/designer Jo Holman renders the Robot in modeling clay
At the same time the problems of creating the illusion of four balloons being inflated in stop motion was being addressed. “The first thing we did was buy some large foil balloons and blow them up just to see what dynamics we were dealing with. We considered creating actual rubber balloons and inflating them with helium and shooting them time lapse but in such a short time if we hadn’t got it right the first time we would miss the deadline,” says Mackinnon. The team also considered replacement animation, a technique whereby each stage of a balloon’s inflation would be rendered as a separate model. “Again time was against us and there was no way we could produce the literally dozens of stages we’d need in time.” adds Saunders, “For all these reasons we decided to go with CG for the balloons and called our friends at Flix Facilities to create a test shot of the 3-D balloons for us.”
Lead CG artist Simon Partington took up the challenge. Within a day he had a beautiful bobbing balloon for us to see. “It was gorgeous,” says Mackinnon. “A bit too gorgeous. It didn’t have that quirky stop-motion feel that Tim was looking for so we asked Simon to try again.” Sculptor/designer Noel Baker quickly produced plastercine sculpts of the balloons and painted them to match Burton’s designs. These were then photographed and shipped over to the Flix team. “We reproduced the shape of Noel’s fantastic sculpts as closely as possible in CG.” explains Partington, “We then took Tim’s actual drawings and textured them onto the balloons before adding some of the same imperfections such as fingerprint detail that Noel had deliberately left on his sculpt. This all helped to recreate the sense of realism that stop motion provides.”
John Whittington maps the Burton design onto the 'M' balloon
Over the course of two days Partington and his team nailed down a technique that not only gave the light, fluffy feel of big rubber balloons but also had the slightly staccato feel of stop motion. The tests were rushed over to Burton, who was deep into post-production on Alice in Wonderland. “There was a huge sigh of relief when Tim gave the thumbs up. In all honesty I don’t know how we’d have got this done in time without the Flix team’s work,” MacKinnon smiles.
The Flix CGI team: Simon Partington, Neil Sanderson, John Whittington, and Mike Whipp
Meanwhile, head puppetmakers Caroline Wallace and Richard Pickersgill completed mold-making and cast out body parts for the robot character in fiberglass, rubber, and silicone, while at the same time constructing the intricate metal skeleton, which fits inside the puppet and enables it to hold any pose during the animation process.
Richard Pickersgill adding the finishing touches to the robot
“Typically a puppet character can take anywhere between twelve to eighteen weeks to produce,” says Pickersgill, “But Tim’s design lent itself to a very economical build and we put the puppet together in just ten days, probably something of a record!”
Pickersgill completed the final paint job a mere twenty-four hours before photography was due to begin. “As he was a bit of a beat-up looking little fellow, I decided to add streaks of rust around joints and arms. We sent pictures off to Tim and the only change he made was to remove the rust—so there was an eleventh hour (literally!) repaint.” Pickersgill chuckles, “I think the paint was possibly still tacky when we put him on the set!”
An arm is released from the mold
With the delivery deadline only four days away, lighting cameraman Martin Kelly and animator Chris Tichborne took over. “Our set was very simple,” says Kelly, “Tim wanted the robot and the balloon against a flat grey background. It was great because it further emulated the look of his original pen-and-ink drawings on a plain sheet of paper. We had three days to shoot the whole piece and my first take had to be right. I’d spent a day the previous week videoing myself performing the robot part. You feel a bit silly but Neil Sutcliffe, who edited the footage into his animatic, was very kind. He didn’t laugh too much!” Even for such a short piece, Tichborne tried to cram in as much in as he could. “Richard and Caroline had included a hinge top to the robot’s head which bobs open and closed as he walks. I also had in my mind Charlie Chaplin when the robot walked—not directly copying him but more just how he would create an idiosyncratic walk.”
DOP Martin Kelly slates a shot
CG lead Simon Partington was on set the whole time doing test composites of the balloons and the animation, just to make sure everything was lining up in terms of lighting and the timing of the dynamics. “The CG and stop-motion animation had to be delivered simultaneously; there would be no time to fix things later so we were literally doing the CG renders and the animation at the same time. Seeing it come together shot by shot was fantastic!”
Although the shoot took three long days over a weekend, the team’s experience and preparation paid off and the shoot went off without a hitch. The precious footage was beamed off via a high-speed data link for Tim Burton to oversee the final post-production in Los Angeles.
Chris Tichborne helps the robot pump it up
“Tim and the folks at MoMA seemed very pleased with the results,” says Ian Mackinnon, “It was a great little project to have been involved with and we hope the audiences at MoMA like it too!”
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
Metromix covers a lot in their Q&A with filmmaker Tim Burton. In the interview, Burton talks about the various films that he's working on (and even mentions the status of the stop-motion adaptation of Frankenweenie), his thoughts on the Oscars, the current state of animation in the film industry, and much more:
You came aboard 9 as producer after Shane Acker had made his short film. How'd that process work out? I liked his short film, and he had a certain sensibility that I felt close to. Because I had gone through the process and made animated films…I always know what I wished I'd had, which was somebody to bounce things off of: first cut, the first draft of the script, some design notes.
What drew you to the story? I liked the short film. It just seemed like a piece of a larger picture. It just needed to be fleshed out. The thing about a short is, you can keep the kind of mystery and the kind of personal quality to it. And I think the key was to keep that feeling, but on a bigger scale. You see a lot of personal films, but you don't see a lot of personal animated films. Well, the number of Oscar nominees for Best Picture has now been bumped up to 10… 10?!
10! Wonder why they did that? I had heard talk of it but didn't know they actually did it. Wow.
With more nominees this year, people are predicting that a film like Up could land a spot as the first computer-animated Best Picture nominee. Animated films…they're films! I think it's good that now, most people are not looking at them as [just] animated. They're looking at them as films, like the Pixar people. You can categorize [animation], but it shouldn't be limited by that.
But the Best Animated Film category is still there. Do you think that ghettoizes these movies? Maybe it does. But at the same time, most people recognize—certainly the studios recognize—the economic potential of animated films. Family films, animated films—[they're] much more of a sure thing than any type of film at the moment. What's your favorite animated film? [Long pause] I'd have to pick something that had a lot of impact, which was Jason and the Argonauts [by] Ray Harryhausen. That really had an impact on me. The stop-motion animation and the kind of reality and scale of it at the time when I saw it was really amazing.
Would you ever want to remake that film? They're remaking Clash of the Titans. [Chuckles] I know. Nah, I think it was good.
How are things coming along with Dark Shadows? I haven't really started that at all. I still have to finish Alice. So that's a big job ahead of me. It's way too early. [Laughs] Probably in a year's time.
Any ideas that you've already been thinking up for it? Well, just to try to capture the tone. It was a strange show, it has a strange vibe to it. And that's, I think, key to it. Alice has been all over the place, with photos and trailers and you guys at Comic-Con. Usually I don't talk about something before it's done. So it's been an odd situation because I [still] have so much work to do. I'm not scared of [all the special effects], per se, but I'm a bit daunted by the time and the unknown quality of it. But that makes it exciting as well. What about Frankenweenie? Still early. Like I said, the focus I have is Alice. It's hard to think of anything else that requires a large amount of work.
But that's on the table. Oh yeah, afterward, yeah. Exactly. Slowly get started.
I saw the latest "Harry Potter" last night, which stars your partner, Helena Bonham Carter. She makes a pretty mean baddie. [Jokes] Yeah, she's a good witch. She had a lot of practice. She's good at that. Does she ever come to you for tips on how to channel all that darkness? No, she keeps it all personal. She keeps it all for her own uses, yeah. Witchcraft uses. [Laughs]
New York's Museum of Modern Art is doing an exhibit on you later this year. That was a little unexpected. I feel like it's a weird dream—I'm not sure that it's real. But it's very exciting. That's probably more scary than a film, in a certain way. It feels a bit more exposing. I'm trying not to think too much about it. I'm trying to remove myself a bit from it—a bit of an out-of-body experience. Your films have such a consistent, dark vision. Do you ever wake up wanting to do something crazy like a romantic comedy? [Chuckles] No. Well, I thought Sweeney Todd was a romantic comedy in my mind. So, I think I've already done it. [Laughs] But not the way you're thinking, because that would be scary. But some of those are so scary, they're like horror movies anyway. They don't need my help.
Disney's D23 Expo is coming to Burbank, California from September 10-13. Many screenings, panels, and other Disney-related events will take place, including some new footage of Alice in Wonderland.
On Friday, September 11th, at 11:00 am, Disney Studios Chairman Dick Cook will be hosting a presentation of upcoming Disney movies in the 4,000 seat Anaheim Convention Center. There will be some new exclusive footage of Alice in Wonderland at that morning event.
And at 1:00 pm that same day, there will be a 3D screening of The Nightmare Before Christmas. The short films Vincent and Frankenweenie will play prior to the feature film. The Nightmare Before Christmas will return to select cinemas in Disney Digital 3D this October.
Admission is $37 for a one-day adult ticket and $27 for children 3-12. Four-day passes are $111 for adults and $81 for children. Learn more at the official website, D23Expo.com.
Tying in with the MoMA Tim Burton exhibition coming this fall, a book will be released containing loads of the director's artwork, aptly titled, "The Art of Tim Burton." The book will be a over 400 pages packed with over 1000 works of art by the visionary filmmaker, spanning across decades of his career and life.
Here are a few samples (click on them to see a larger version), courtesy of /Film:
Romeo and Juliet, pen and ink.
Untitled (Blue Girl with Skull). 1992–1999. Polaroid, 33 x 22″ (83.8 x 55.9 cm).
Untitled (Trick or Treat). 1980 Pen and ink, marker, and collage elements on board, 15 x 15″ (38.1 x 38.1 cm).
Untitled (Frankenweenie). 1982. Pen and ink, marker, and charcoal on paper, 11 x 13″ (27.9 x 33 cm).
Disney has unveiled the logo to the upcoming Alice in Wonderland while annoucing future 3D releases.
There is also a logo for Frankenweenie (the animated version set for release in 2011). But it looks very similar to the original font from the 1984 live-action short, and so may change in the future.
It has been many months since we last heard anything about the upcoming stop-motion animated feature length remake of Tim Burton's Frankenweenie.But finally, more information has surfaced.
The film is clearly still in pre-production. John August (who wrote the scripts for other Burton movies) will be writing the screenplay. Allison Abbate, a producer on Corpse Bride and other animated films, will still produce Frankenweenie alongside Burton, and Disney producer Don Hahn will serve as an executive producer. Many other artists and crew members from Corpse Bride will be involved. Frankenweenie will also be shot in black and white at this point, like the original short film.
Burton has wanted to adapt his original 1984 live-action short Frankenweenie since it was first made nearly 25 years ago. From the looks of it, that will eventually become a reality. Frankenweenie is aiming for a release in Disney Digital 3D in participating theaters in 2011.
In addition to Alice, Depp will also be in two other upcoming Disney films: he will return as Captain Jack Sparrow in the fourth installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise and as the Lone Ranger's sidekick, Tonto, in a new cinematic adaption of the western serial (Depp is part Cherokee in addition to his German and Irish ancestry).
But after all of this talk about Alice in Wonderland, some of us are still wondering about Tim Burton's other film in his two-flick agreement with Walt Disney Studios: a feature-length, stop-motion animated version of Frankenweenie.
The fact is, no big recent news has come up, but it is still in the works (Burton confirmed this on the new DVD release of The Nightmare Before Christmas). Production will commence on the stop-motion adaptation as soon as shooting for Alice is completed (right now, pre-production is going underway). Both Frankenweenie and Alice in Wonderland will be released in theaters presented in Disney Digital 3-D (as will many of the studio's other future projects).
No word on whether Depp will provide his voice for Frankenweenie yet, though.
Walt Disney Home Entertainment has released information regarding the upcoming DVD release of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. The film will be available as a two-disc standard DVD and a single-disc Blu-ray version.
What's This? Jack's Haunted Mansion Holiday Tour: Viewers choose the way they want to tour Disneyland's Holiday Haunted Mansion. "On Track" explores a tricked-out version of the Haunted Mansion, while "Off Track" reveals what went into creating all the creepy fun.
Tim Burton's Original poem narrated by Christopher Lee: Tim Burton's poem that inspired the creation of the movie comes to creepy life as performed by legendary actor Christopher Lee.
Film Commentary: Commentary by producer and writer Tim Burton, director Henry Selick and composer Danny Elfman.
Introduction To Frankenweenie!: A new un-cut version introduction by Tim Burton.
The Making of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Go behind the scenes of the very first full-length stop motion animated movie with the filmmakers.
The Worlds of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Witness the creation of the film's richly imagined dreamscapes, including Halloween Town, Christmas Town and the Real World.
Deleted Scenes
Storyboard to Film Comparison
Original Theatrical Trailers and Posters
Tim Burton's Complete Short Film Vincent.
No significant featurettes seem to be missing from this release, set for August 26th, 2008, with the exception of the audio commentary track which featured Henry Selick and director of photography Pete Kozachik. That extra was on the earlier DVD release.
All of these features will be available on both the two-disc standard DVD and the Blu-ray version, with the exception of the special introduction by Tim Burton to the film, which is Blu-ray exclusive.
For tech buffs, the specs include 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 video (1.66:1), English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Surround and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround audio (both 48kHz/24-bit), and English, French and Spanish subtitles.
That immensely expensive DVD collector's pack that was mentionedin the original TBC News articlewill be comprised of the two-disc standard DVD version and an individually numbered and hand-painted bust of Jack Skellington. Equipped with his Sandy Claws hat and beard, the collectible Jack figurine will have a sound chip built into it, which plays quotes from the movie.
Interesting that the DVD will include an introduction to Frankenweenie. This is probably just a video introduction to the original live-action short film by Burton from 1984. But might it also hint at a preview of Burton's upcoming stop-motion, feature-length version of the movie?... Well, I guess we shouldn't get too greedy...
IESB.net has stated that director Peter Segal recently said that John August has written a screenplay adaptation for the TV series Dark Shadows -- and that Tim Burton is attached to direct it and Johnny Depp is (supposedly) to star in it.
Dark Shadows was a television series which ran from 1966 to 1971. It was a popular gothic soap opera, featuring vampires, werewolves, and other ghoulish creatures.
John August wrote the screenplays of Tim Burton's Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Corpse Bride.
Rumors of Burton and Depp teaming up for a big-screen version of Shadows came up on the Internet months ago. And this more official claim seems to encourage those beliefs. But just because Burton is attached to direct the film, it doesn't mean that he necessarily will. Months ago, Warner Bros. had Burton attached to helm an adaptation of the fantasy novel The Spook's Apprentice. But eventually, Burton moved to other projects (his upcoming Frankenweenie and Alice and Wonderland at Disney), and Kevin Lima is now currently signed on to direct Apprentice.
We'll have to wait and see what the future holds for Burton, Depp, and this planned Dark Shadows movie.
While it's always good to be cautious with IMDb.com's reports, it seems very likely that the two will be producing the film.
Allison Abbate was a producer on Corpse Bride, as well as other animated films (stop-motion and otherwise) including Brad Bird's The Iron Giant and currently Wes Anderson's The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Mr. Fox and Frankenweenie are both set for a 2009 release, with the latter scheduled for December.
Allison Abbate and co-director Mike Johnson promoting Tim Burton's Corpse Bride at Comic-Con in 2005
Don Hahn was also a producer on many of the animated films from the so-called "Disney Renaissance" of the late 1980s and 1990s, such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Beauty and the Beast, and The Lion King. He was also a leading producer on the 3D theatrical re-release of The Nightmare Before Christmas in 2006. Like the re-release of the cult classic musical, Frankenweenie will be shown in 3D in theaters, among numerous other future Disney releases. Pixar and Disney have decided to work exclusively in 3D for many of their upcoming films, on various forms of animation and even on some live-action movies. Specifically, Hahn will be an executive producer on Frankenweenie.
Don Hahn
Tim Burton will also be a producer on the stop-motion film, reportedly.
The movie website also stated that filming has commenced on Frankenweenie. This would make sense, as stop-motion animation is a tedious process (despite the film being deliberately low-budget, as Burton wanted). No updates on the screenplay or casting have come up. Frequent Burton collaborator Chris Lebenzon will likely serve as editor.
Again, it is always good to be wary of announcements on IMDb, but we feel confident with this information (plus, the author of these articles is already getting very anxious for these upcoming Burton films). We will keep you posted of any updates!
The release date for Burton's other Disney project, Frankenweenie, was not mentioned in the article. But this is likely because it will be an animated film, and the article covered information on live-action (or mostly live-action) features. Frankenweenie is said to be released sometime in 2009.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was honored with the award for Best Editing (Comedy or Musical) at the 58th annual ACE Eddie Awards. Editor Chris Lebenzon received the award for his work on Burton's horror-musical.
Lebenzon first worked with Tim Burton on Batman Returns in 1992. Since then, he has held the position of editor on all of Burton's film, from Ed Wood to Corpse Bride, as well as consulting editor on The Nightmare Before Christmas. Lebenzon is likely going to be editor for Burton's two upcoming feature films: Frankenweenie (2009) and Alice in Wonderland (2010).
Lebenzon was last nominated for an Eddie Award for his work on Burton's Charlie in the Chocolate Factory.
Read more about the winners and nominees of the Eddie Awards (in film and television alike) in this link.
John August: Hinting at Unknown Future Burton Films?
On his official website, screenwriter and Burton collaborator John August wrote in his blog that, contrary to claims made on such websites as IMDb.com (which have now been changed), he will not be writing the screenplay for Burton's upcoming stop-motion adaptation of the director's short film, Frankenweenie. August wrote the following on his blog:
"I had a meeting with Disney Animation about a year ago, in which they pitched the idea of doing a feature version of Tim’s Frankenweenie short film. They even had production art for it. Then, separately, I had a conversation with Tim about doing another stop-motion animation project like Corpse Bride.
"But they’re not the same thing. And as far as I know, I won’t be working on either one. (That said, I didn’t think I was working on Corpse Bride until I was halfway on a plane to London, so never say never.)"
John August first worked with Tim Burton when he wrote the screenplay for 2003's Big Fish. Directly after that fanciful odyssey, August wrote the screenplay for Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the final draft for Corpse Bride, both released in 2005. August also helped composer Danny Elfman adapt and write the whimsical lyrics for both Charlie and Corpse Bride.
August's blog entry is made even more interesting in the following excerpt:
"To further confuse matters, there’s a different and as-yet-unannounced Tim Burton project (live action) which I almost certainly will be writing post-strike. And yes, I’d love to tell you what it is. But I can’t."
This project can't be Burton's upcoming Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, which will also be made at Walt Disney Pictures. Linda Woolverton already has the credit of writing the screenplay for that future literary adaptation. So John August seems to be hinting at possibly two unknown future Tim Burton films, one live-action, the other in stop-motion animation. What could these films be? We'll have to wait for future articles to appear...
In 1985, Paul Reubens brought his original character, the zany man-child Pee-wee Herman, to the big screen. This same film, Pee-wee's Big Adventure, was also Tim Burton's directorial debut in the world of feature-length motion pictures.
It's been over twenty years since that widely acclaimed, box-office winning, and quotable cult classic came into popular culture. Now, Mr. Reubens, though a bit older (but still plenty Pee-wee) is considering making two more films featuring his infamous alter ego.
"I feel like the time is really ripe right now," Reubens said on why he's interested in making more Pee-wee movies at this point in time. "A lot of the kids who grew up with the show are young adults. The college kids are middle-aged adults. I feel like I have enough of a built-in audience to make back an investment."
Reubens reported that he has two scripts ready to go. The first concerns an extension of his multi-Emmy Award winning children's series, Pee-wee's Playhouse. This feature-length adaptation will bring the characters into a whole new realm. "We never really went out into what we call puppet land," Reubens recalled of the show. "And this [film] takes place out of the playhouse. I think there are one or two scenes in the playhouse in the beginning. Basically it's all in a fantasy land," he said. "It's like a 'Wizard of Oz,' H.R. Pufnstuf epic adventure story." The whole assemblage of characters will hopefully be there, in their live-action human and puppet forms alike.
Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman
Photo: Frazer Harrison/ Getty Images
The second storyline is one that Reubens called "the dark Pee Wee movie," is "not really very dark" and certainly not intended to be an R-rated film. "It's basically the story of Pee-wee Herman becoming famous as a singer," he explained. "He has a hit single and gets brought out to Hollywood to make musical movies, kind of like they did with Elvis. It all kind of goes downhill from there for Pee-wee. He turns into a monster. He does everything wrong and becomes a big jerk." Though he described it as a movie "about fame," Reubens insisted, "It's not autobiographical."
But will audiences buy a 55-year-old man-child, even if it is Pee-wee? People have noted that Reubens still has the energy, humor, and essence of his character from over two decades ago. But if that isn't enough, Reubens has a plan: "My second option is to have Johnny Depp play Pee-wee," he said. Reubens insisted that he's even spoken to Depp about it, saying that the actor told him, "Let me think about it."
Will Tim Burton and Paul Reubens collaborate again? After Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Reubens and Burton collaborated again on Batman Returns (1992) and The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). Reubens admitted that he talked to Burton about the possibility of bringing these new Pee-wee projects to the big screen in the future, but acknowledged his old collaborator's own busy schedule. "I have talked to Tim about one of them about a year ago. But Tim is booked. I think he would be interested in it, but he's really busy." Indeed, Burton will soon be working on a feature-length version of Frankenweenie (the original short film from 1984 was what made Reubens decide that Burton was perfect for directing the first Pee-wee Herman movie) and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Reubens is still searching, but remains optimistic. "I think it's really just a question of the right person coming along. I've had opportunities to do [the films] with people who didn't feel like the right people. It just takes one person."
Scifi.com had some quotes from Tim Burton on his upcoming, stop-motion version of Frankenweenie. The film, based on Burton's live-action short of the same name from 1984, will now be a feature-length movie, which is what Burton had originally wanted to do. "We're going to do that real low-budget," the filmmaker said. Burton assured that this will not be the exact same movie as his original. "The thing that excites me about it and that will make it different is that when I look at my original drawings, there are certain things that are in those that I couldn't get in the live action when I made the film. So I'm quite excited to try to get a certain emotion and other characters in the new version, and I want to make it a slightly bigger story."
"I'm such a fan of old movies, and I think that just stays with you," Burton added. "It doesn't leave you. Those kinds of things, whether you think about them or not, they just are in your DNA, and they stay with you. Even if I was doing a romantic comedy I would probably stick a bunch of shadows in there or whatever."
One piece of artwork by Tim Burton for his 1984 Frankenweenie.
Frankenweenie will be shown in 3-D in participating theaters, and released by Walt Disney Pictures, in 2009. This may seem like a short time, but stop-motion features, though tedious to make, are considerably less expensive than CGI movies (usually only a third of the expense), and, with enough diligent, talented animators working on many scenes simultaneously, the film can be pulled off in a few years. Tim Burton's Corpse Bride from 2005 was also accomplished in this amount of time, having been done so with new technology that exceeded the abilities and time spent on animating from the days of The Nightmare Before Christmas in 1993.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Tim Burton felt "pretty devastated" by the failure of the development of a film he was going to work on last year, Ripley's Believe It or Not!. Burton had already begun planning locations for shooting the film in China, when Paramount Pictures shut down pre-production due to budget issues. Ripley's was to be a biographical movie ("bio-pic") on Robert Ripley, a cartoonist and filmmaker who traveled the world looking for bizarre oddities and curiosities. The film was to star Jim Carrey in the title role, and reportedly Gong Li, as well. "I know it's a business," Burton said of Ripley's with a frustrated tone of voice. "But for those of us working on the film, you get excited, and it's an art form. They should feel lucky that you treat it like an art form." Shortly after, however, a new project from Paramount came up for Mr. Burton: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Ripley's may still happen someday, but likely not with Burton (since he will be working on Alice in Wonderland and a feature-length, stop-motion animated version of Frankenweenie with Disney in the next couple of years).
The article goes on to talk about Sweeney Todd, but beware of SPOILERS! Approach with caution!: Article.
Update: The Producers of Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" Announced
Playbill News has stated that Richard D. Zanuck, Joe Roth with Suzanne and Jennifer Todd will produce Tim Burton's upcoming Alice in Wonderland at Disney. Roth and the two Todds are first-time Burton collaborators, but Richard D. Zanuck has produced every live-action film by Tim Burton since 2001's Planet of the Apes. The article also stated that production for Alice will commence in January 2008. Burton will not be working on Alice and his stop-motion remake of Frankenweenie simultaneously. Instead, production on the upcoming animated film about a boy and his resurrected dog will begin after Alice. Walt Disney Pictures is expecting production on Alice to be finished by the end of May 2008.
A new article has stated that Linda Woolverton, who wrote the screenplays for the Disney animated features Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King, will be penning the script for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie. In addition, both Alice and the stop-motion, feature-length version of Frankenweenie will be shown in theaters in the Disney Digital 3D format. The 3D format has received a reborn interest among many film studios in Hollywood. Several new films and old classics will be released or re-released in the 3D format in the coming years. This year, Tim Burton's brain-child from 1993, The Nightmare Before Christmas, and his 1982 stop-motion short Vincent (in participating theaters), were shown in 3D.
Shooting for Alice will commence early in 2008 and is set to end production by the end of May that year. Burton will then go on to work on Frankenweenie, also with the Walt Disney Co.
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!
