Tim Burton Calls Working With Disney a "Horrible Big Circus"

Director Tim Burton has a long history working with Disney.

Tim Burton, Director of Dumbo, Visits Disneyland Park ©Disney

He’s the mastermind behind The Nightmare Before Christmas, but also directed several Disney live-action films, including Alice in Wonderland, Alice in Wonderland Through The Looking Glass, and Dumbo. However, Burton recently commented on why he might be done working with Disney.

Here’s something you may not know: Tim Burton has been working with Disney since the 1980s. He started out as an animator, but he was fired after Frankenweenie was released. He was later re-hired for other projects, though.

In an interview with Deadline, Burton summed up why he thinks he’s done with Disney — at least for now. He said, “My history is that I started out there. I was hired and fired like several times throughout my career there. The thing about Dumbo, is that’s why I think my days with Disney are done, I realized that I was Dumbo, that I was working in this horrible big circus and I needed to escape. That movie is quite autobiographical at a certain level.”

Burton also commented about how he feeels that smaller projects no longer have a place at Walt Disney Studios anymore with the company so primarily focused on Marvel, Pixar, and Star Wars. He said, “It’s gotten to be very homogenized, very consolidated. There’s less room for different types of things.”

He also commented about why he could never do a Marvel film, ” “I can only deal with one universe, l can’t deal with a multi-universe.”

For now, though, you can still watch many of Burton’s Disney movies on Disney+, including The Nightmare Before Christmas, Frankenweenie, the Alice in Wonderland films, and Dumbo. He is also currently working on the Wednesday series coming to Netflix soon.

Want even more to watch on Disney+? See what’s coming to the streaming service in November!