Tim Burton pioneered the comic book blockbuster at the start of his career, directing Michael Keaton in both “Batman” and “Batman Returns” for Warner Bros. However, the filmmaker says he’s not interested in returning to superhero films in today’s industry, with its focus on long-term continuity and cinematic universes.
“At the moment, I would say no,” Burton tells Variety in a new interview. “I come at things from different points of view, so I would never say never to anything. But, at the moment, it’s not something I’d be interested in.”
The filmmaker, promoting his new sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” shares that he was afforded a certain creative freedom and faced relatively modest studio supervision during the 1988 production of “Batman” in England.
“I was lucky because at that time, the word ‘franchise’ didn’t exist,” Burton says. “‘Batman’ felt slightly experimental at the time. … It deviated from what the perception [of a superhero movie] might be. So you didn’t hear that kind of studio feedback, and being in England, it was even further removed. We really just got to focus on the film and not really think about those things that now they think about even before you do it.”
Burton also shares that he initially didn’t possess significant interest in pursuing a sequel to the original “Batman,” but changed his mind after being drawn to the villains of the Penguin and Catwoman. Burton and Keaton both returned for “Batman Returns” in 1992, which also starred Danny DeVito and Michelle Pfeiffer as the iconic comic book rogues. However, neither Burton nor Keaton returned for Warner Bros.’ follow-up “Batman Forever”: that 1995 film saw Joel Schumacher take over directorial duties and Val Kilmer playing Gotham’s caped crusader.
“I got reenergized by the whole thing,” Burton says. “And that was when we started hearing the word franchise and where the studio started going, ‘What’s the black stuff coming out of the Penguin’s mouth?’ It was the first time the cold wind of that kind of thing came upon me.””
Beyond the “Batman” franchise, Burton was also once developing a “Superman” film, with Nicolas Cage attached to star. While that project never came to be, last year’s DC Comics feature “The Flash” paid homage to it by featuring a CGI version of Cage fighting a giant spider in a multiverse-traversing sequence.
Reflecting on his unrealized Superman film, Burton says that, “There’s always this ‘Jason and the Argonauts’-style journey that everyone goes through to get a movie made. I’ve worked on a couple movies that didn’t happen after working for years on them, and those are quite traumatic. I just try to focus on things that I feel strongly about and get rid of all the noise surrounding them.”
Burton’s 20th feature film, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” hits theaters on Sept. 6.
