"Alice" #1 at Box Office: $116 Mil. Opening Weekend

Brandon Gray of Box Office Mojo has all the details on the successful opening weekend of Alice in Wonderland:

Audiences clamored to see Alice in Wonderland (2010) as if they were late for an important date, delivering a $116.1 million opening weekend. That's more in just three days than the total gross of any other 2010 release. Alice's corpulent start drove the highest-grossing March weekend ever: overall business boomed 69 percent over the same timeframe last year, when Watchmen debuted.

Showing on approximately 7,400 screens at 3,728 sites, Alice in Wonderland's opening stands as not only the all time biggest for the month of March, but as the highest-grossing ever for a movie released outside of May, July or November and sixth overall. It's a career best for director Tim Burton, surpassing Planet of the Apes (2001)'s $68.5 million, and second best for top-billed actor Johnny Depp, behind the second Pirates of the Caribbean. Alice marks the seventh collaboration between Mr. Burton and Mr. Depp, and its debut handily eclipsed their previous high together, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ($56.2 million).

Around 70 percent or over $80 million of Alice in Wonderland's opening was viewed through the 3D looking glass, topping Avatar's $55 million as the biggest 3D launch ever. Alice played at a record 2,251 3D sites, compared to Avatar's 2,038. Alice also set a new opening milestone for IMAX, grossing an estimated $11.9 million at 188 sites (included in the totals). The previous benchmark was Avatar's $9.5 million at 178 sites. Combined, the 3D and IMAX ticket premiums over normal prices appear to have added about $22 million to Alice's gross.

To hit $116.1 million out-of-the-gate, Alice in Wonderland benefitted from a combination of factors, including the involvement of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton, who are among Hollywood's few bankable name talents, batting in their quirky wheelhouse, and the good will built up by Avatar for 3D events. Distributor Walt Disney Pictures' marketing campaign was not only omnipresent but spot on in its presentation: it first grabbed people's attention with a flashy entre into Wonderland through Mad Hatter, Red Queen and other wacky characters, then it lured audiences further by grounding the fantasy with Alice and presenting her adventure story.

All told, Alice in Wonderland appealed well beyond the family crowd suggested by its Disney branding and Lewis Caroll's famous literary source. According to Disney's exit polling, 39 percent of the audience was parents and their children, while 36 percent was couples. The basic gender and age demographics came in at 55 percent female and 54 percent under 25 years old.

At the foreign box office, shiny and new Alice in Wonderland unseated reigning stalwart Avatar, debuting to an estimated $94 million from 40 territories or around 60 percent of the overseas market. Add in the domestic take, and Alice's worldwide weekend was an estimated $210.1 million, ranking as the 14th biggest worldwide launch ever. The United Kingdom was Alice's top foreign market with an estimated $16.8 million (the highest non-sequel start ever there), followed by Italy ($13.9 million, also a non-sequel record), Russia ($12.3 million) and Australia ($9.2 million). Meanwhile, Avatar was off 42 percent, generating $22.8 million and bringing its total to $1.88 billion.

Carter and Hathaway Interview

TeenHollywood has an interview with Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway. In it, they discuss playing feuding royal sisters in Alice in Wonderland, their female roles, how their children have responded to the film, and more. Here's the entire interview, but beware of minor SPOILERS!:

TeenHollywood: Helena, that's an adorable dress.

Helena: Thank you! I thought it was appropriate for Alice.

TeenHollywood: When people say you have a "big head" in this movie, they aren't speaking of your ego, right?

Helena: Well, I’m not as inflated (today). Maybe that’s why Tim gave me the job. I’m one of the few actresses who can blow up their head.

TeenHollywood: Is there music in the background? Can someone turn that off?

Helena: Funny. That’s my music. That’s what we do at home is we have the (film's) score going…




TeenHollywood: Talk about the challenges of acting all this against green screen. Seems more and more films are getting made that way now.

Helena: When you’re acting you kind of have to imagine anyway but the unsung heroes of (the movie) are these various green people dressed in leotards that fed us the lines off(stage). (For example) Michael Sheen (White Rabbit) wasn't there. I had a 12-inch drawing of a rabbit but, behind him was this green screen actor so that’s what we had to act opposite. I would have appreciated it if (Michael) had come in his bunny outfit once but he didn’t. (laughter). This actress (indicating Anne) is the one who had to do her own special effects. She didn’t have anything special done to her. We all had to act opposite tennis balls and bits of tape but you do that anyway. Actually tennis balls and bits of tape can be good actors; minimalists (Anne is laughing).

Anne: I would do anything if Tim wanted me to. I would have played a mushroom in this if that’s the way he saw me in it. I would have happily donned my green onesie and been up on stilts. I would have done anything to be in Wonderland but it’s kind of nice to be a real person as well. Being CGI'd or not? I have no preference, sorry I don’t.

Helena: Tim did digitize my waist. Did anyone notice that? They go on about my head but my waist is digitalized. (laughter). He told me that from the beginning, ‘don’t worry. Don’t go for the full pull-in with the corset every morning’ so I didn’t. Then halfway through says ‘you know? The waist is gonna cost too much so…’ So halfway through I suddenly went for the pull and then luckily, someone just told me ‘no we could do the waist’.

TeenHollywood: Anne, can you talk about your character the White Queen?



Anne: I’m so much more interested in what Helena has to say about it. One of the most fun parts about my character was this freedom that Tim gave me from the first conversation we had. He said ‘you know, in Wonderland, I don’t want anything to be all good or all bad so I don’t want it to be that the Red Queen is the bad one and you’re the nice, benevolent one who’s all good’. So, he said ‘have fun exploring the relationship between the two of them. They come from the same place’. So I thought ‘how fun if my character has a sort of hidden psychosis’..

Helena: It’s not all that hidden (we laugh).

Anne: Now it’s not. She is interested in knives and things like that and is kind of adorable on the outside and has tried very hard to become this good, almost over the top, positive creature but, underneath, she kind of has a murderous streak that comes out when she’s around weaponry. So, it wasn’t necessarily that they were opposites. They were just sisters who were different.

TeenHollywood: You have sympathy for the Red Queen at the end of this I think.


Helena: Oh, thank you.

TeenHollywood: Helena, I heard you had to spend hours in the make-up chair each day. What was the problem?



Helena: (laughing) You see the problem! Speak to my husband. No, it wasn’t that long. I just said hours for the sympathy effect but it was only two and a half hours.

But they put a bald cap on and get rid of my hairline then have to paint it and put my beauty make-up on, that took some time, then my huge wig. They didn’t blow my head up every morning. They did that on camera. I had this one camera, there are two cameras in the world that do this, they just blow your heads up. I had this huge camera dedicated to me, which was fine by me.

TeenHollywood: You weren't in the make-up chair longer than for your ape make-up for Planet of the Apes?

Helena: No, that was much longer. That was four hours. He (Tim) likes to put make-up on me, likes to deform me. I love it. I always like looking as different as I can.

TeenHollywood: Anne, when did you read the “Alice in Wonderland” books? Or “Jabberwocky” (a Lewis Carroll poem)?

Anne: When I was in fifth grade I had a teacher who made the entire class memorize “Jabberwocky” and perform it. So, I made Tim, during the battle sequence, let me recite the poem. And he looked at me, ‘you know it’s not going to be in the film’. And I said ‘I know but just for my own sense of completion, in my life, please let me do this’.

I didn’t read “Alice” until I was in college. I was really moved by it. She’s a very emotional character and I think a lot of people feel confused at 19, as to who they are, who they think they are, who they want to be. We struggle with a sense of identity then and other times in your life. I really read the book from that perspective; of a girl who is trying to find her identity which is great because that’s what the movie focuses on; which Alice are you? So, that was my experience.




TeenHollywood: Anne, you were quoted as saying you thought of the White Queen as a punk rock, Vegan pacifist. Can you explain?

Anne: The pacifist thing was in the script. My character had taken a vow of non-violence but it was also in the script that, when she talks about that she hits a bug so that gave me the idea that’s she’s taken this vow against her will, that she recognizes that her sister is sick and believes that a means to an end is cutting people’s heads off and that’s kind of her default setting and I’m just like ‘I don’t want her to be in charge so I have to be in charge’.

I like the idea that my character probably, left to her own devices, might not have wanted to be queen.

So, then I started to think about who she was when she was in her off-queen time and I realized she spends a lot of time in the kitchen and I made her a Vegan then I just imagined her in Mosh pits and not really punching anyone but fighting against these people really hard and then I thought ‘I like Blondie’ and she’s blonde so that was obvious but I still wanted her to have a regal thing so I watched a Greta Garbo movie. I watched a lot of her silent films. I thought nobody has ever moved on film the way she did. Her whole body looks like it’s breathing.

TeenHollywood: Helena, as a mom of young kids, what do you think is an appropriate age for them to see this film?


Helena: I don’t know what age. Tim always has a theory that it’s us who have got the problem. We impose fears on our kids and the kids are actually quite robust. So, it depends on your kid.

We haven’t shown it to Billy (age 6) yet because it wasn’t finished until a few days ago. When we were trying to find a nursery school for him, according to the Montesorri method, (kids) can’t tell the difference between reality and fantasy until age six. (The woman there) recommended no fairy tales so that’s why we didn’t send our son to Montesorri because telling Tim Burton that fairy tales are not a good idea is ….. ooooh (laughter).

TeenHollywood: What were your kids' reactions when they first saw you in costume?

Helena: My little daughter who was only one, just went ‘Mommie!’ (laughter). That’s what I look like at home but it was bizarre. But my son, slightly frailer and sensitive, he just didn’t want to look at me.

TeenHollywood: Helena, you’ve played everything from sex symbols to villains. Do you gravitate more to one than the other?

Helena: Thank you. Is this the sex symbol one; a frightening sex symbol? Actually somebody did approach me in the lift today because they found me attractive with a big head. No, the older I get, I only get villains at the moment but whatever is well-written and has a good somebody behind the camera who knows what they’re doing and a really good storyteller… I’ll act anything.

TeenHollywood: Anne, the film is really female empowering. Girls should dream the impossible, as Alice does, and make it so. Can you relate to that?

Anne: Yes. I think my life is an impossible dream. Acting made me curious about what actually is impossible and once you go after it, you find that a lot of things are very achievable. I think some things may seem impossible but you have to try.

Helena Bonham Carter on "Alice," Burton

The Guardian asks actress Helena Bonham Carter about her career thus far, Alice in Wonderland, how her life has change since meeting Tim Burton, and much more. Also included are pictures from a Wonderland-inspired photo-shoot. You can read the entire article here, but here are some notable excerpts:


'I’m ­often criticised for what I wear. That’s my main label in the press now: disastrous dresser!'
Photograph: Gustavo Papaleo

Helena Bonham Carter discussed her exagerrated, tyrannical role in Alice as the Red Queen. "I've brought myself. It's me... in Alice," she says. Holding up a cardboard cutout of her character, she explained, "She's got Tourette's. She just says, 'Off with their heads!' all the time."

Bonham Carter has worked with Tim Burton in six films so far. Alice in Wonderland has gathered tremendous hype (and cost a bundle, too -- $250,000,000), but the actress revealed that she has not seen the film yet. No one has. The movie has been kept top secret. Then again, she may never see it. She and co-star Johnny Depp cannot stand seeing themselves on screen. "Johnny doesn't watch ­anything he's in. That's slightly comforting. You think if Johnny Depp can't watch himself..."

It doesn't help that Burton seems to dress her up in outrageous characters, either. "No, I can never rely on Tim to make me pretty."


'We do dress up at Halloween.'
Photo: Gustavo Papaleo


But playing such extreme and quirky characters has been working just fine for Bonham Carter. Prior to meeting Burton in 2001, she was mostly relegated to posh, corset-wearing roles in period dramas. She first emerged with a proper role in film at age 19 in A Room With a View, and went on to be a poster girl for EM Forster, English roses and the corset ­industry. Since then, her resume has altered dramatically.

"Ageing has helped hugely," she says. "There's no question I'm a better actor, and you leave ­behind a certain typecasting. I was like the corset bimbo." She stops, has a slurp of smoothie, a bite of toastie and starts again. "Well, not quite bimbo, but you know what I mean. The corset sex symbol, I suppose. Now I'm not going to be the sex symbol, I'm going to be the granny." She changes her mind by the mouthful. "Well, not quite granny."


Does Tim have a key to her house? 'No… He always visits, which is really touching.'
Photo: Gustavo Papaleo

Bonham Carter had had plenty of boyfriends, ­including Kenneth Branagh, but had never lived with anybody. "I remember I did think, 'Wouldn't it be nice if Mr Right moved in next door?'"

Eventually, he did. During the filming on Planet of the Apes in 2001 (with Bonham Carter as the female lead, the human rights advocating chimpanzee Ari), she met the director, Tim Burton. At the time, she barely talked to him. The only thing she remembers him saying to her is that he knew he wanted her as one of his apes, and that he had once lived in Hampstead and it was the only place in the world he'd felt at home. When the film was completed, they began their relationship, when she was 35, and he bought the home next door to hers in Hampstead. Today, they have two children, six-year-old Billy Ray and two-year-old Nell.

After meeting Burton, her acting work and wardrobe changed. "I'm ­often criticised for what I wear. That's my main label in the press now: disastrous dresser!" she exclaimed. "Sometimes it's really offensive, but it's kind of affectionate now. We're like the 'bonkers couple'."

Another common label that is tagged on her is 'goth,' but Bonham Carter is uncertain that it's an appropriate adjective for herself. "I don't like the music particularly, I've got no goth records. Is it the predominant black? The make-up? And the whiteness? The white thing. Yes... Tim sometimes puts grey make-up on for the press and he doesn't tell me, so afterwards I'm like, 'You're ill!' He goes, nah, it's the grey make-up. Heeheeehee!"

Burton gets similar descriptions in the press, but she was equally skeptical about that description. "He doesn't like the music, either. But we do dress up at Halloween." Do they just stay at home in their make-up, or go out? "No, we go out and play. I don't know... well, he likes death... It's not that he likes it, but he's considered it in his work."


'In the six weeks when you’re up for an Oscar, there’s a little ­window where you’re offered everything. Seventh week, when you haven’t got it, you’re fucked. Forget it.'
Photo: Gustavo Papaleo

Burton is still considered an oddball, and their aesthetics do differ from the Hollywood conventions. Bonham Carter speculated that Burton might have Asperger's Syndrome in the past, but she now says she tends to get such observations incorrectly. "All the auties love Nightmare Before Christmas." Again, she apologises, this time for the word ­auties. "I played Jacqui Jackson, a single mum with children on the autistic spectrum, and I feel partly it's OK to talk like that because I know her, know that world, and she calls them auties." It makes perfect sense what she says about ­Burton. "I think he felt very isolated in Burbank where he was born. Edward Scissorhands is a ­version of where he was brought up. It is a bit ­Alice In Wonderland – I don't belong here." Whatever he may or may not be, there is no doubt that Burton is a unique, creative person. "He's someone who's very creative and has a mad ­exterior, but he is funda­mentally very sane and ­practical. I don't think we're crazy at all, to be honest," Bonham Carter said.

They're practical in domestic arrangements, too. Needing their independent space, she has one house, he has ­another and the children have the third to play in with the nanny. Do she and ­Burton see each other much at home? "He always visits, which is really touching. He's always coming over." Does he have a key to her house? "No, the houses are joined. We have a throughway. Journalists think there's an underground tunnel, gothic. It's ­actually quite above ground, lots of light." Do they sleep together? "Sometimes. There's a snoring issue... I talk, he snores. The other thing is, he's an insomniac, so he needs to watch ­television to get to sleep. I need silence."

In the interview, she went on to show some family photos on her mobile phone. "That's Bill as a pirate for his pirates party. He's so ­unbelievably patient. Nell's two, she's going to destroy everything. He's­ ­introvert, she's extrovert. He's very tender, she's much more traditionally masculine."


'I feel more sexy than ever, not because I’m sexually attractive, I just feel I’ve grown into my body.'

Hair: Carol Hemming. Make-up: Louise Constad at Mandy Coakley Represents using Benefit.
Photo: Gustavo Papaleo.


She thinks she has changed since being with ­Burton. "He's made me more aware. He thinks I overact all the time. He's got a thing about me having a very mobile face. Tim has often said I've got hyperactive eyebrows – he calls them the dancing cater­pillars. He's all for minimal ­expression. He likes to simplify things, I ­complicate them. I think we can do this or this or this, optionitis, then I get frozen because I don't know which one."

Has she changed him? "People who know him say I have, and I feel really flattered. Made him talk more. He didn't ­really talk before. He's much shyer than me. Every ­sentence was ­unfinished. I used to say he was a home for ­abandoned ­sentences. Now he actually finishes them." She sounds so chuffed, as if the thought has struck her for the first time. She is often ­described as Burton's muse, but that makes her uneasy. She says she would not be upset if in future he didn't cast her; there's always going to be a film for which she isn't right. "You can't take it personally." But what if he decided he no longer wanted her in any of his films? "Well, if it's obvious that I'm right for it, I probably will take it personally. I'll let you know when it happens." Could their ­relationship survive that? "It will be interesting. It's not without its pressures, working with Tim. It worked on Alice. Sweeney was very stressful, very hard on our relationship." Is he a boss or partner on set? "No, he's a partner in our private life, but when he's directing, he's the boss. And maybe I confuse that."

At age 43, she feels adult for the first time in her life, and capable of playing almost any role. "I feel more sexy than ever, not because I'm sexually attractive, I just feel I've grown into my body." Did she feel sexy when she was a ­beautiful young thing? "No, absolutely not. ­Totally uncomfortable. It took me ages to grow into being a woman, into being happy with it. When I was young, I believed in being androgynous, you can't flaunt it, you can't use it. The whole thing was just something yuck, to be ­embarrassed about. And now it's just like, 'Hey, enjoy it!' Now I feel fine about shapes and things. It's nice to have curves. To be a woman."

"I suppose I'm just a late developer."

Wahlberg on "Planet of the Apes"

Mark Wahlberg, who starred as Captain Leo Davidson in Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes, recently explained why he was in the movie. Wahlberg said he chose the role so he could "grow" and just to work with director Burton.

"I didn't necessarily think 'Planet of the Apes' would be the best movie to remake, but I wanted to work with Tim Burton," said Wahlberg. "At that point I was choosing roles that allowed me to grow, to learn from great artists."

Originally a musician and a model, Wahlberg was not taken seriously for his film roles. Now, as an Oscar-nominated actor, Wahlberg has now been appreciated more for his performances. But even early on, the actor was entirely committed to his roles, such as the one in Planet of the Apes.

"I was committed 110 per cent," Wahlberg said. "It was like, 'Oh I'll just try this'. I was obsessed with acting, making movies, studying film 24 hours a day."

Twentieth Century Fox had expressed interest in revamping their Planet of the Apes franchise. However, the new film, which was supposed to be a prequel, was recently shelved. Neither Burton nor Wahlberg are were attached to the project.

UPDATE: New York Magazine reports that the reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchise is actually in development, but neither Burton nor Wahlberg are attached.

An Interview with Tim Burton

An interview with Tim Burton from Wired, in which the filmmaker discusses the new generation of 3D cinema, original ideas vs. remakes, his creative process in creating characters, and anthropomorphic objects, among other topics:

Wired: How did you find a life’s worth of work to give to the MoMA?

Tim Burton: I’m not a very organized person. Luckily I had a bunch of stuff that had just been moved to England from a warehouse in America. I don’t really go through things very much, so it was interesting for me to go back through it all.

It was an interesting process. It helps ground you and gets you to remember what interested you to begin with. It’s you, but a different you. You can look at yourself objectively.

Wired: Not many directors have retrospectives of their artwork and illustrations. How did having a fine arts background influence your directorial visions?

Burton: The films I grew up loving were very visual. They were the kinds of things that get etched in your memory. To me, film is a very visual thing, so I’m very grateful for my animation background. It’s kind of everything. It’s art, it’s design, it’s film. At that time all I wanted to be was an animator, but through the backdoor you learn how to do everything else. When you make an animated film you have to act it out, design the layouts, shoot it, and edit it. It was a great overall experience.

Wired: What’s your creative process? Do you find yourself doodling and suddenly you’ve got a character for a movie?

Burton: The whole sketching and drawing process to me is the equivalent to how some people write notes. I’ve never really felt like a writer. It was always a visual thing for me. With Jack Skellington, for example, that was just a doodle I kept drawing over and over and over for no apparent reason.

Things can grow from an image that keeps coming up, like the Scissorhands image. They just come as ideas or thoughts, and sometimes they go on to something.

Edward Scissorhands came from a feeling that became a sketch of different forms over the years. It was an idea from when I was a teenager, so it had been in my mind for a long time.

Wired: A lot of your films are original ideas, but you have dabbled with remakes, such as Planet of the Apes and now Alice. Is it easier to get support from Hollywood to remake a film than to start something from scratch?

Burton: There’s a trend right now, where every TV show is remade, and there’s a certain idea of safety in certain properties. At the same time, they can be equally as dangerous. Something like Alice in Wonderland, with the opportunity to do it in 3-D and to experiment, it actually feels like a completely new property.

Wired: Is it more intimidating to take a story people are familiar with and make it your own?

Burton: The reason Alice in Wonderland isn’t as daunting as past productions is that every version I ever saw of Alice in Wonderland was of a girl walking around passively with a bunch of weird characters. It never really had any feeling or grounding to it. It felt like a new challenge to me. There isn’t a great version that I have to live up to.

Wired: Did you feel like Alice was the perfect story for you to debut a live-action movie in 3-D?

Burton: The element that intrigued me was Alice in Wonderland in 3-D. Nightmare Before Christmas was converted to 3-D, and it was really good. I was really amazed. It showed me that this was exactly the way Nightmare was meant to be seen. Now, 3-D just seems to really lend itself to the Alice story. The thing about Alice for me was not so much the literalness of the story, but the trippy nature of it and still trying to make that compelling.

Wired: How hard is it to continue working in more traditional special effects, like stop motion animation, when the rest of Hollywood is drinking the CG Kool-Aid?

Burton: I think stop motion has proven itself as a valuable art form, as has animation. A few years ago it was a dead medium, and while there’s still a lot of uncertainty, there’s enough diversity now. If people like the movie, it doesn’t matter what medium it’s in. It’s actually better now than it was a few years ago, when CG was really kicking in.

Wired: You love stop motion. What’s your fear of CG?

Burton: Take Nightmare Before Christmas, for example. I was offered to do it in drawing animation and I held out for stop motion, because that was the right medium for that project. It’s up to each project and what you’re technically trying to achieve that decides what medium should be used, whether it’s stop motion, animation, or CG.

Wired: From Pee-wee’s Big Adventure to Beetlejuice, furniture, inanimate objects tend to come to life in your films. Do you anthropomorphize objects on a daily basis?

Burton: Well, I’m lying in bed here with my coffee pot… That’s where you need free time to space out. People don’t do that enough in life. Those are the moments where a tree turns into a little character.

Wired: Are you excited about the retrospective?

Burton: It’s such a strange and surreal event to me. I haven’t quite grasped it. I might as well put my dirty laundry basket in there as well.

Colleen Atwood on Burton, "Alice": "It's Going to Be Amazing"

Renowned award-winning costume designer and frequent Burton collaborator Colleen Atwood sat down for an interview with MovieLine.com, and discussed how she met Tim Burton, how new technology has affected her method of designing costumes for Alice in Wonderland, what we can expect from Burton's upcoming Alice in Wonderland, and much more:

You’ve worked with Johnny Depp many times now.

I have … Edward Scissorhands, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow … Let’s see … Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland …

It must be a treat to design for an actor who can disappear so seamlessly inside his characters.

He really is a chameleon, and he takes on the character in the clothes. They don’t ever look like costumes on him; they look real, and that really helps my job.

Your partnership with Tim Burton — how did the two of you first come together?

I was recommended to him on Edward Scissorhands by a production designer — Bo Welch — who I’d work with prior to that. So I met Tim through him, and we clicked in our own way, and we’ve managed to have a long run together and still enjoy working together. I just went to Tim’s show at MoMA last night, and it was fantastic. Really amazing.

Do you conceive of the costumes together through sketches? I know he frequently begins on paper.

There’s something that he captures that is kind of the soul of the character on paper, and there’s often costume elements, but we’re not married to that at all. I mean, for sure on Edward Scissorhands, because there was so much involved with that, but with the Mad Hatter, with Sweeney, with those costumes, he really doesn’t give me a drawing and say, “This is what I want.” I think it’s because he knows the other people working with him are artists, so he gets very excited and enthusiastic when we show him what we have. He has a wonderful eye himself, and so he’ll a little magical touch to something.

How did the new 3-D technology he used in Alice in Wonderland affect your designs?

I did a lot of the computer animated costumes — I knew what the animated world was going to be, and I knew a bit about 3-D anyway, and so I sort of tried to make stuff that you could play with in 3-D. Stuff that pops in and out. We ended up physically making a lot of the other stuff and it would later end up being animated. It really helped Tim to see things as physical costumes first, and it gave the animators a lot of help as far as depth and texture and things like that. I think what we’re going to see now is the mixture of live and animated people and costumes in an animated world. It’s going to be a really amazing, fun thing for the audience.


I know he wanted to depart with the traditional narrative. How tied were you to the original illustrations, and what were you reference points for designing a new Alice in Wonderland?

It was really freeing, because there’s Lewis Caroll’s own drawings, of which there aren’t very many and they’re quite simple. As Alice went through various eras, there’s classic references for them. Because this is so different from what people are going to expect — Alice isn’t a ten-year-old girl, she’s a young woman — there’s a nod to the classical need for that. But once she goes into Wonderland, we took it to another place. The Hatter has a hat and the recognizable elements, but we explored the world of hat makers in London in the period. So we pulled from that for inspiration more than the previous illustrations, and Johnny used that for his character. They called hatters “mad hatters” because they used these toxic glues and dyes all the time, and they were actually quite mad, a lot of them. So it was quite cool to read about that business in that time, and that they were actually quite in demand and made a quite decent living at that period.



Now when you do something historically accurate and less fanciful than something like Alice in Wonderland, such as Public Enemies, how much research goes into it before you even sketch your first drawing?

In a story like Public Enemies, it’s about people who existed, so you go to that trough, using what few images of them existed. Actually when I do period work, I really like to read about the period as much as I like to look at pictures, because sometimes the written word is much better at conveying what their lives were really like and how much they had, and where their clothes came from. Because a lot of time, people dressed in their Sunday best to pose for a picture. They didn’t take snapshots until much later — there certainly wasn’t much of that going on in the 1930s.

For most of these guys, it was mugshots and prison entrance and exit clothes, but I had a lot of people do online research, and Michael Mann of course had been on the project for a long time and had very deep research and was quite specific. The production designer usually starts a show before I do and they usually have a depth of research. So it’s a combination of all that.


You have some TV credits as well, such as The Tick. Did you design The Tick’s costume?

Yeah. The pilot.


Is it true The Tick’s moving antennae cost $1 million to produce?

Not the ones I did. Maybe later when they did the series they spent more money, but I did the pilot. I remember the amount that costume cost, as a matter of fact, and the budget for that kind of TV pilot is usually much higher. I didn’t have the kind of R&D you get when they decide to really go for it.


What was the most expensive costume you’ve ever made?

I’d say probably the most expensive costumes I’ve ever made were the costumes in The Planet of the Apes, because of the research and development that went into them and the amount of layers. I got the cost per costume down, but because it involved so many processes, with sculpting, and bodysuits, and cool suits, and oversuits, and helmets, and footwear, and handwear, that had to work for action and look like monkeys, that was probably the most expensive per-unit costume ever. The period stuff I spend a lot of time on, I have good textile artists. They’re not cheap, but they’re not out of control expensive either, because you have to make it work.




Speaking of making it work, do you watch Project Runway?

I have watched Project Runway, but I’m not a devout watcher of it. But I think it’s a great show, what I’ve seen of it, and I think Tim Gunn is a very positive, amazing guy.


I ask because they’ll often dismiss something on the show as looking “too costumey,” and I’m wondering if you take offense to that.

No, because I think the street world that it’s in is different. People like to stir up the fashion vs. costume world, and I think what they mean by “too costumey” is that it’s too much, or not real enough for everyday wear. You couldn’t say that about John Galliano’s shows, right? I mean they’re awesome and they’re total costume. It’s just a different thing. They do like to slag off costumes a bit — not on that show, but in the fashion world. I don’t know why they feel they have to compete.


Are you ever tempted to, or maybe you do, design your own clothes?

You know, it’s strange. Like, I’ve designed my Oscar dresses and my people have made them for me, but my own clothes per se that I wear? No — but I do a lot of fitting. Like I’ll buy something and completely recut it. I’m so used to thinking that my clothes are fairly neutral, it’s other people’s clothes I like to design.


Next up you’re working on yet another Johnny Depp film — The Rum Diary. What’s the look you’re going for there?

Well, it’s real. It’s a guy that goes to Puerto Rico in 1960, who’s kind of like an average guy. He shows up with very few clothes. There’s contrasts in the story, between the haves and the have-nots, the Union Carbides vs. the locals, so I pushed that side of the contrast a bit. But it’s very research-oriented and real clothes a lot.

"Alice in Wonderland" Books Coming

Two books are coming out in relation to Tim Burton's cinematic adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic fantasy: a visual companion by Mark Salisbury and a novelization of the film by T. T. Sutherland.

There is no cover art for either Alice in Wonderland books yet, but you can preorder them on Amazon.com. The novelization will be available on Feburary 2nd, 2010 and the visual companion on March 2nd. (You can also buy the two together on Amazon.)

Mark Salisbury has chronicled the life and films of Tim Burton extensively. He is the editor of the definitive Tim Burton interview book Burton on Burton, and the author of the visual companions for Burton's Planet of the Apes, Corpse Bride, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Tim Burton on "Alice in Wonderland," "Dark Shadows," and More!

Tim Burton took some time from shooting Alice in Wonderland to chat on the phone with Geoff Boucher of the Los Angeles Times. In the detailed and lengthy interview, Burton talks about Alice in Wonderland, the possibility of making a cinematic version of Dark Shadows, Johnny Depp, the latest addition to the "Batman" series, The Dark Knight, his upcoming Spike TV award, and much more.

Here is much of the interview (you can read the full article in its original context here):

I got Tim Burton on the phone the other day while he was on the set of Alice in Wonderland and I had to admit right off the bat that I was surprised that, with the filming just underway, he was taking the time to chat. "Yeah, well, me too," he said in his droll deadpan, and I wasn't sure whether to laugh or apologize and hang up. Then he let me off the hook. "Actually," he said in a sunnier voice, "we're just about to get going so we'll see how things go. Good, I hope."

I'm guessing things will go quite well for the 50-year-old filmmaker, who seems like the ideal auteur to bring Lewis Carroll's surreal 1865 classic "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" to the screen for a 21st century audience.

Young Aussie Mia Wasikowska will be Burton's Alice, while Johnny Depp is the inspired choice to play the Mad Hatter.

I told Burton that it seems as if Depp (who has other upcoming roles as an Old West hero, a pirate and a vampire) approaches his acting choices the same way a gleeful kid rummages through a trunk of dress-up clothes. The filmmaker let out a loud laugh. "It's true. Yeah we have a big dress-up clothes trunk here. We take it with us wherever we go."

More on a Depp and "Alice" in a moment, but first: This Saturday night Burton will be at the Scream 2008 Awards at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles, an event that in just its third year has become a signature event in sci-fi, comics, fantasy and, yes, horror, which was is its original mandate but is now just part of its genre cocktail. Burton is getting something called the Immortal Award and the Scream people boldly say that Burton has "contributed more to the genres of fantasy, sci-fi and horror than any other filmmaker of his generation," and there's certainly an argument to made that they are completely right. Burton's film visuals -- a sort of cemetery cabaret ethos -- have put him on an short list (Alfred Hitchcock, Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Woody Allen spring to mind) of filmmakers who have such distinctive on-screen traits that they become evocative brand names to even casual filmgoers.

Burton will be making quite the dramatic entrance on Saturday (which you can see yourself when the show airs on Spike TV on Oct. 21) but he has a reputation as a fairly shy fellow. I asked him if he was looking forward to the trophy night or dreading it.

"I haven't been to the event but I've seen a bit on TV and it looks quite fun, you know, which in itself is different from most of these kind of shows. It looks like a nice big Halloween party, which is always good. It seems like all the type of people that nobody liked in school all getting together for a nice big party. A prom for the kids that didn't go to prom."

I told Burton that, for the night, the venue should change its sign to read 'The Geek Theatre' and he laughed again. "That's very good! I like that. I can't use, that, I can't take credit for that." He said he had a better way to sum up the geek and Goth crowd that will attend: "We're all the people on the yearbook pages devoted to "the most likely to disappear before the semester ends and no one will notice..."

Burton was making "Batman" films when the cape genre was still viewed as a campy ghetto by serious Hollywood creators, so it must be interesting for him to watch the fringe entertainment move so squarely to the center of mainstream film and to finally do so with respectable reviews. "It is a different time now, yes. It's strange to me. At the time back in school when everybody tortured you, it didn't seem quite the same. It wasn't fashionable then. It didn't seem viable and vibrant and accepted at the time. But sometimes those things take a while."

With "Alice in Wonderland," the defining pop-culture version of the story for modern American audiences is the 1954 Disney animated adaptation with its little blond Alice in her blue dress with white pinafore. That film was met with acidic reviews by the literary world (especially in England) for its bland and blunted vision of the Carroll classic. Burton is not a fan of the film, either, and, as with "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," it appears his mission is to reclaim a children's classic, resharpen its edges and remind everyone that sapping the weirdness out of a tale often renders it flat and forgettable.

"It's a funny project. The story is obviously a classic with iconic images and ideas and thoughts. But with all the movie versions, well, I've just never seen one that really had any impact to me. It's always just a series of weird events. Every character is strange and she's just kind of wandering through all of the encounters as just a sort of observer. The goal is to try to make it an engaging movie where you get some of the psychology and kind of bring a freshness but also keep the classic nature of 'Alice.' And, you know, getting to do it in 3-D fits the material quite well. So I'm excited about making it a new version but also have the elements that people expect when they think of the material."

I told Burton he's right, the Disney movie is a meandering tour of a funhouse without any gripping story arc. "Yeah, I know, it's just, 'Oh, this character's weird' and 'Oh, that character's weird.' I can't really recall a version where I felt really engaged by it. So that's the goal, just to try to give it a gravity that most film versions haven't had."

How easy was it to persuade Depp to conjure up yet another enigmatic oddball? "He loves doing that. That's never a problem. He doesn't like to be the same way twice. That's good, it always keeps it fresh and all. And he likes the material we have here and he gets it. It's nice to have people involved that are fans of the material and all."

Is there a plan yet on Dark Shadows, based on the vampire soap opera, also set to star Depp? "Oh I don't know. Take one at time, you know? It's something I'm interested in of course. Definitely. But I'm going to start shooting this one first!"

I asked Burton if it's more than a coincidence that over the past decade his live-action films have often revisited and reimagined existing works, be they literature (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), musicals (Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street), movies (Planet of the Apes) or television shows (Dark Shadows).

"Hmm. That's interesting. I don't know. I think we're all a product of our upbringing, you know, in a sense. I wasn't a very literary person. I loved movies. What you grow up with is what influences you. Whether you were a reader and there's a lot of books that you sort of want to translate to film or if it's other things that took in. I was definitely of a generation where the things I grew up watching still have impact on me. There's something about exercising that aspect of your personality or working with something that's meant a lot to you. It's just another way of processing ideas and all. So it's not really a conscious decision. I don't open up old 'TV Guides' and sit there and think, 'Hmmmm, 'Sanford & Son', that's the the movie I want to do. I watched that when I was a child...' "

Burton said he is ramping up his bravery for the Saturday night event with its hot spotlight and crowd. "I don't do it very often so it's not something I'm very used to. I'm not comfortable in big public situations, but at the same time it's a very nice thing. It's a very nice thing to do. But while it is nice, it's not the thing you think about a lot. For me, it's the people that come up to you on the streets, the people that say something to you in person, something nice and thoughtful, that's so much more interesting than connecting with a sort of staged event. you know? The types of people you grew up with, the people that enjoy certain kinds of movies, there's a connection with people like that. I certainly feel that. I mean, when someone comes up to me on the street and they have one of my drawings as a tattoo on their body, a real tattoo... I mean, that's pretty amazing. That's happened to me a few times."

Then there was a question I had to ask: What did Burton think of The Dark Knight? After a bit of fumbling around for words, Burton said: "I haven't seen it yet. I'm just, you know, busy. I do want to see it. I've heard it's very good. And I'm sure it is very good. Mostly everybody that I know that has seen it has said that it's very good and I take their word for it."

I thought it would be good to change the subject. There was a recent anniversary DVD of Beetlejuice, so I asked Burton how he frames that film in his mind when he looks back on it as both a career and creative moment.

"With that movie, I just remember that back then it was the second film I did and I felt very strange making it because everyone was thinking, 'This movie really has no story and it doesn't move along like a Hollywood movie.' It just felt very funny and strange having the opportunity to make that. I just remember that feeling every day: 'Wow, they're letting me make this, which is really weird.' And it continues to this day, that dynamic. It's still weird."

Seemed like a good place to stop. I thanked for Burton for his time and mentioned that I'm hoping to visit the Alice set soon. "That's great, I'll see you out here! I'll be on the green screen. Just look for a load of green. Take care."

-- Geoff Boucher

CREDITS:

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton in a November 2007 photograph by Liz O. Baylen/Los Angeles Times.

Illustration by John Tenniel from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

Michael Keaton as Batman from the 1989 Tim Burton film, image courtesy of Warner Bros.

Tim Burton in 2006 at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, photographed by Ricardo DeAratanha\Los Angeles Times.

Tim Burton in 2006 at the Hollwyood Wax museum, with a waxen Johnny Depp in the background, photographed by Ricardo DeAratanha\Los Angeles Times

Photo of Johnny Depp and Tim Burton on the set of "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" by Peter Mountain/Dreamworks-Warner Bros.

image from "The Nightmare Before Christmas" courtesy of Disney

Bonham Carter and Hathaway in "Wonderland"

Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway will both be in Alice in Wonderland.

Bonham Carter will play the role of the belligerent Red Queen, and Hathaway will play the more placid and kindhearted of the royal sisters, the White Queen. The distinction of having both of these characters suggests that the film will indeed follow the original Lewis Carroll book instead of simply emulating previous cinematic adaptations.

This is the first time Anne Hathaway has collaborated with Tim Burton (though there was talk that she was considered for a role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street as well).




Helena Bonham Carter has been in each of Burton's films since Planet of the Apes in 2001.

Burton v. Marie: Legal Battle

Director Tim Burton has been ordered to stand trial in a lawsuit by his ex-girlfriend Lisa Marie, who claims she's owed millions of dollars.

Los Angeles Superior Court Justice Teresa Sanchez-Gordon ruled on the morning of Friday, July 18th, 2008, that a trial is the best means to determine whether Burton verbally agreed to bankroll Marie for life in return for her acting in his films (which include Ed Wood, Mars Attacks!, Sleepy Hollow, and Planet of the Apes) and serving as his personal manager, as her suit contends, before allegedly duping her into a much smaller payout.

Burton had fought to have his lawsuit tossed. There has been no immediate comment from neither his publicist nor his lawyer.

While Marie turned up for the proceedings in California, Burton participated on the phone, since he is in London, busy working on his upcoming Alice in Wonderland.


The article by Josh Grossberg continues as follows:

In his motion seeking dismissal, attorney Joseph Mannis argued that any sort of oral agreement was not applicable in this case, because Lisa Marie signed off on a $5.5 million settlement. Per the terms of that deal, Mannis argued, Lisa Marie relinquished all claims to Burton's assets and promised not to file a palimony suit.

But the model and actress, who appeared in small roles in many of Burton's films and whose real name is Lisa Marie Smith, claims she only received $2.7 million and was victimized by a conspiracy. She claims that Burton worked with her own advisers to shortchange her.

Burton filed a countersuit last September seeking a court declaration affirming she was obligated to live up to the prior deal.

One of the plaintiff's lawyers lashed out at the director's camp for a bullying tactic in which they threatened to take futher legal action against her if she fought Burton's petition to dismiss the case.

"They said that if we had the temerity to file papers in opposition to their motion for some reason that they would file a malicious prosecution action not only against Lisa Marie but also against me," cocounsel Judd Burstein told E! News. "It's going to be very interesting what the jury thinks of that kind of hubris."

Burstein added his camp was "very pleased" by the judge's ruling.

"It's not unexpected to us. Nice to know that just because you're a big celebrity you can't get your way by cheating and bullying."

The attorney also said that a chance for an amicable agreement was past.

"We've had some [settlement] talks, but it's not going anywhere," Burstein said. "We want our day in court, and it will be a very bad day for Tim Burton."

That day is now scheduled for August 11th.

Zanuck on "Alice"

No big news at the moment, but producer Richard D. Zanuck has confirmed that Tim Burton's upcoming Alice in Wonderland will begin shooting in London this May. Burton is currently involved in pre-production of the fanciful film.

The producer, who has collaborated with Burton on each of his live-action films since Planet of the Apes in 2001, also promised that there will be "a lot of animation" in the movie.

Alice, which is being made with Walt Disney Pictures, will use a combination of computer-generated animation and live-action.

No casting decisions have been declared at the moment, but since filming is due to begin very shortly, we may find out who will be in the movie soon enough.

Stay tuned for more information!

Charlton Heston, 1923-2008

Movie legend Charlton Heston passed away on Saturday, April 5th, 2008. He was 84. Lydia, his wife of 64 years, was by his side.

The Oscar-winning actor, president of the National Rifle Association, and Civil Rights activist was one of the last remnants of the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood. He starred in such monumental classics as Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments, Touch of Evil, and the original Planet of the Apes, among many other films.

One of his last onscreen appearances was in Tim Burton's 2001 version of the science-fiction adventure Planet of the Apes. In the film, Heston appears in an unbilled, surprise cameo as a dying old chimpanzee, speaking to his violent son, the villainous Thade, played by Tim Roth.

On the DVD audio commentary track of the film, Burton recalls how exciting it was, working with this screen legend and hearing his booming voice in person.

Here's an excerpt of a review of Burton's film by Armond White of the New York Press from 2001. The review has a consideration portion focusing on Heston's brief appearance. You can read the full article, which also comments on the visual style, Tim Roth and Helena Bonham Carter's performances, and likens the movie to social satire, in this link:



Charlton Heston reveals the discreet charm of the Hollywood conservative in Tim Burton’s reimagined Planet of the Apes. In the 1968 original Heston starred as an American astronaut who discovers a future evolutionary reversal–a society ruled by apes, with humans as the captive species. Now, in an unbilled cameo, Heston plays one of the apes passing a legacy of violence and vengeance to his son Thade (a snarling, snorting Tim Roth). Once again evolution has played tricks on mankind by reasserting the atavistic animal within. And Heston displays this with rousing, hilarious aplomb. You might recall Laurence Olivier’s deathbed scene in Brideshead Revisited but Heston’s from-the-mountaintop voice ("Damn them all to hell!") is irresistible. It echoes through one’s movie memories–parodying aristocratic hubris and Heston himself.

Bequeathing an ancient relic–a gun–to a pre-Neanderthal is an irony surely not lost on NRA zealot Heston who, earlier this year, appeared as a dangerous, rifle-toting nut case in the Warren Beatty comedy Town & Country. When one of Burton’s primates sees a gun and asks, "Who would invent such a thing?" the obvious answer to the question resonates as Heston’s private joke–a punchline that hunts down liberal alarmists in their tracks. Fully cognizant of the misuse of firearms, Heston’s gag doesn’t deny the risks that guns entail. (The sense of the scene recalls that Simpsons joke when Homer, told he can only purchase a gun after an eight-day security check, whines, "But I’m angry now!") Heston’s scene reflects the gun control debate with imaginative complexity–as such sophisticated moralists Sam Peckinpah and John Boorman once were able to do. He goes pop–without isolating the issue or taking it past ambivalence to partisan oversimplification. In fact, Heston’s character curses "the power of invention, the power of technology... Against this our [physical] strength means nothing." It’s a startlingly humane plea coming from a dying simian patriarch who was a nearly pacifist ruler hiding the secret of weaponry. Knowing the catastrophe of humans’ unchecked aggression, Heston warns, "No creature is as dangerous...as violent." This twist is richer than any right- or left-wing rhetoric.

Burton, Marie Go to Court in August

What was hoped to be a quick settlement has evolved into a drawn-out legal confrontation between director Tim Burton and his ex, Lisa Marie. The trial is set for August 12th, 2008.

Lisa Marie, 39, originally filed a lawsuit against the filmmaker in 2006.

Marie and Burton met in December 1991 and quickly moved in with one another. At that point, according to her complaint, the filmmaker promised to "share equally any and all property accumulated" and agreed to take care of her financial needs for the rest of her life.

Burton did assist Marie's career: the model appeared in four of his films -- Ed Wood in 1994, Mars Attacks! in 1996, Sleepy Hollow in 1999, and Planet of the Apes in 2001.

But while shooting their last film together, Marie's suit states, Burton dumped the model/actress for Helena Bonham Carter, who played the female lead in Apes. Bonham Carter and Tim Burton currently reside in England with their two children.

Lisa Marie's suit claims that while Burton and Bonham Carter pursued their romance, Marie felt "extremely depressed" for several months.



Marie, whose full name is Lisa Marie Smith, eventually received $2.7 million, but in 2004, she complained of a conspiracy preventing her from obtaining her fair share.

Burton fired back with his own petition, seeking a court declaration which would demand Marie abide by the original agreement.

You can read more details of the legal issue in this link.

Helena Bonham Carter: "Sweeney Todd," Motherhood, Acting, and More!

The Observer has published a lengthy and highly informative interview with Helena Bonham Carter. In the article, the 41-year-old actress discusses her roles in Tim Burton's films, her relationship with the director, her family life, her professional life, and much more.

Helena Bonham Carter recalls one of the first conversations she had with Tim Burton, long before she and Burton got together, about her home place, Hampstead. The director had stayed there while shooting Sleepy Hollow and told the actress that it was the only place in the world where he felt that he truly belonged. Since then, the pair have become a happy, unmarried couple, with a home in Hampstead, England, and four-year-old Billy and a brand-new baby girl, just born this past December. Bonham Carter states that she is very happy with her relationship and family with Mr. Burton. "I think it's to do with our hair - the lack of comb, the lack of hair care," the actress stated.

Of course, Burton was curious about his next project at the time, Planet of the Apes, and Bonham Carter remembers that the very first thing the filmmaker told her was: "I can really see you in an ape mask." Bonham Carter continued, "'He said: 'Don't be offended, but you're the first person I thought of.' Then he explained himself, which was much more intuitive. He said: 'I just got the feeling you like to change what you look like.' And I said: 'You're absolutely right.'"

Helena Bonham Carter as Ari the chimp in Planet of the Apes (2001)

Bonham Carter explained that she wanted to be in Planet of the Apes for two main reasons: partly because of the ape suit ('I always like to do the thing you're never going to be able to do again'), and also because she wanted to be able to work with the acclaimed filmmaker. "I was excited to work with Tim Burton, even though the script was absolutely crap," she says. "But it wasn't a case of: 'I want to work with him because I'm going to have two children with him, and he's going to be my husband!'"

After Planet of the Apes, Helena Bonham Carter worked with Tim Burton on Big Fish (playing a witch), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (playing Charlie's poverty-stricken mother), lending her voice for the animated film Corpse Bride (playing the dearly departed bride), and most recently the love-sick, somewhat-maniacal Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

Bonham Carter states that the horror/musical is "not feel-good," but she adored playing the part of Mrs. Lovett in the cinematic adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical. Bonham Carter is a self-described "musical whore." "I've always loved musicals," she says. "Tim thought I was making Billy gay because that's all I'd sing to him." She even claims that singing for Sweeney Todd may have got her pregnant. "It was all the oxygen. And my pelvic floor has never been so fit. I've got great hopes that after this baby it's going to bounce straight back" (Bonham Carter was pregnant with her and Burton's second child while this interview was being made).

A very pregnant Helena Bonham Carter

But the actress asserted that, contrary to accusations, she does not get the parts in her partner's films simply because of their relationship. "I really do have to be righter than right before Tim lets me do a part," she says. "Sexual favours don't get me anything" (nor does it for frequent Burton collaborator Johnny Depp, she said). This was especially the case for Sweeney Todd. Composer Stephen Sondheim, not Tim Burton, ultimately had the final say on whether or not she would play Mrs. Lovett. Luckily, after Bonham Carter auditioned for the Broadway legend, she passed Sondheim's test. She describes getting the part as "the most absolutely amazing thing. I just could not believe it. Nor could Tim, actually. He burst into tears. And I burst into tears."

As happy as Bonham Carter and Burton are in their relationship, she admits that their relationship, like any other, has its rockier moments, and not surprisingly when work is the issue. "There are certain stresses that come with working together," says Bonham Carter, particularly alluding to their experiences on shooting Sweeney Todd. "There's no pretence with us, you see. No 'Let's adopt our formal selves'."

What sort of thing is she talking about? "Well, he was all: (growls) 'How difficult is it to come through the door and cover that spot!' And I'd be (whines): 'I've got wool in my head because I'm fucking pregnant, and there's blood everywhere and I didn't see it, all right?' And all I get is: 'Action!'"

Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter (as Mrs. Lovett) in Sweeney Todd (2007)

But when things got tricky, Johnny Depp was able to step in and act as relationship counselor for the director and actress. Helena said, "Johnny was very helpful because me and Tim would sometimes have little domestics and he was very diplomatic." She continued, saying, "Johnny was very thoughtful because I was pregnant and when you are pregnant, for the first three months it's difficult to concentrate on anything - all your energy goes into the baby. Sometimes he was off-camera and when I had completely forgotten what Tim had told me, Johnny would just sign language, 'Look over there!' or whatever it was I needed to do, so that was particularly helpful!"

On feeding one another's creativity, Bonham Carter stated what she thought of the title of "muse." "I don't know if you could call me a muse," grins Bonham Carter. "Most muses are silent."

But despite minor mishaps during shooting, and despite how much she relished playing Mrs. Lovett, Helena Bonham Carter is absorbed and fully ecstatic with her role as a mother. The actress enthusiastically described motherhood as "the ultimate creativity," and said she'd love to do it again and again. "I'd really like six of them!" Does Bonham Carter feel that having her children in her late thirties and onward makes them all the more precious? "Yes," she says. "Because you really want them by then, don't you? You've made the decision. You don't resent the time, or any loss of freedom. You're just so very happy to have them around."

Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter

Bonham Carter reflected on whether or not Tim Burton was equally excited about becoming a parent. "Totally. He's very childlike anyway. He's never let go of his inner child. Or his outer child!" As for Helena?: "It does make you grow up, doesn't it?' she says. 'But it makes you grow down, too. It brings back the child in you."

The actress stated that she does not like to look at herself in the films she acts in ("It's not false modesty... It's torture!"), but she still loves that career. Her being in touch with her childlike sensibilities is what attracted her to acting in the first place. She says acting is "taken way too seriously - it's all just dress-up and make-believe." The actress also said that there should be a role of play in acting. "That and transforming. You know - getting away as far away from yourself as possible." But why would she need to get 'far away' from herself? "Because," smiles Bonham Carter, "that's what makes me feel liberated."

You can read much more on Helena Bonham Carter's career, film roles (including Harry Potter, Fight Club, and more), her family, her personal history, her fashion sense, and much more in the article from The Observer.

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.

Mark Salisbury Has Written Companion Book to "Sweeney Todd"

Mark Salisbury, who has interviewed Tim Burton for the book, Burton on Burton, and wrote who the companion book to the 2005 stop-motion film, Corpse Bride, has written the companion book to Burton's upcoming Sweeney Todd.






Salisbury said, "Call me biased regarding Tim Burton, if you like, on account of my long-standing relationship with the man forged through my many years of interviewing him for my book Burton On Burton, but I'm the first to admit I disliked most of his Planet Of The Apes. That said, I love almost everything else he's made, even Mars Attacks which, to my mind, is a work of subversive genius that will, in the not too distant future, finally get the recognition it truly deserves."



He continued optimistically, saying, "There's been some carping in certain online quarters about how Burton's lost it, and about how this is going to be a disaster. Wrong. Wrong. WRONG. I'm not really at liberty to say much about Sweeney, but, take it from me, this is going to be something very special. People are going to be surprised and really blown away when they see what Burton, Depp and co are serving up this time around. Trust me."



As with the book, Tim Burton's Corpse Bride: An Invitation to the Wedding, Tim Burton has provided a foreward to Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The book is to be published by Titan Books, and will be available on December 4th, 2007.

Lisa Marie Told to Revise Lawsuit Against Tim Burton

The Associated Press has reported that, on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007, Tim Burton's ex-girlfriend, Lisa Marie, was told to revise her lawsuit against the director. The article went into detail, saying, "a judge ruled it didn't sufficiently support claims that Burton had backed out of a promise to financially support her. " Marie sued in December 2006, alleging that Burton used fraud to "cheat her out of assets he promised to share with her during their nearly 10-year, live-in relationship." Burton's attorneys said that the director already gave Marie $5 million to sign the contract, "which released him from any further claims to his assets." The judge stated that Marie and her attorneys have ten days to revise the action.



Marie was in four of Burton's films: Ed Wood (1994), Mars Attacks (1996), Sleepy Hollow (1999), and Planet of the Apes (2001).




Photo provided by the Associated Press. This picture was taken at the 47th International Film Festival in Berlin on Saturday, February 22nd, 1997, during a press conference for Mars Attacks.