When Tim Burton was a kid, he felt like an outsider, spending his free hours watching horror flicks and hanging out with the gravediggers at the local cemetery. He eventually turned that fascination into a habit of sketching twisted monsters from classic fright films. After studying at the California Institute of the Arts, he landed a job at Disney, contributing concept art to titles like The Fox and the Hound and The Black Cauldron. Creative clashes pushed him out of Disney, but soon after he was tapped to direct Pee‑wee’s Big Adventure, a runaway hit that launched his celebrated directing career.
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10 Beetlejuice Nearly Got a Sequel
Back in 1991, Burton approached screenwriter Jonathan Gems with an idea for a follow‑up titled Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian. The concept would have seen Michael Keaton return as the mischievous ghost, tasked with “exorcising” humans from haunted sites once more. In the original, Beetlejuice allies with a deceased couple to frighten the Deetz family out of their Connecticut home, a plan that catastrophically backfires when a massive sandworm devours him.
The sequel’s premise would have centered on Beetlejuice’s fall from grace. Stripped of his bio‑exorcist duties, he would have been relegated to stocking shelves in a hellish supermarket. Meanwhile, the Deetz patriarch would be plotting a resort on a tiny Hawaiian island, a venture opposed by his goth daughter Lydia (Winona Ryder), who believes the development threatens the island’s natural splendor. In an effort to halt the construction, Lydia would journey to the netherworld to enlist Beetlejuice’s help, encountering shape‑shifting worms, skeletal beings with lung‑for‑eyes, undead beaver‑coats, and a man with feet for a head—classic Burtonian oddities. Together they would devise a sabotage plan against the resort.
The uneasy partnership would crumble when Beetlejuice, hoping to marry Lydia to become mortal, transforms into “Jucifer: Destroyer of Worlds.” He would unleash chaos, turning cars into metallic wolves and resurrecting prehistoric beasts. Eventually, a giant moth‑like Beetlejuice, spewing lethal slugs, would be forced back to the netherworld after his name is spoken three times.
The project lingered in limbo for decades, undergoing multiple script rewrites. In 2016, Burton announced the sequel was officially green‑lit, stating, “We’ve spoken with the cast we wanted, including Winona and Michael. The script is ready, everything’s set—now we just need to start filming.” Despite lingering rumors, Warner Bros. officially cancelled the movie in 2019.
9 Jack Nicholson Saved Mars Attacks
The survival of Mars Attacks! owes a huge debt to Jack Nicholson. Many actors were reluctant to join an alien‑invasion picture where protagonists often faced gruesome experiments or death. As the screenwriter recalled, “We were on the brink of scrapping the film; Jack was the one who saved our backsides.”
Nicholson entered the fray after spotting Burton at an airport. He had already read the script, and Burton offered him a choice: “Pick any role you want.” Nicholson quipped, “How about both?” He consequently portrayed both the U.S. President and the sleazy land developer Art Land. Both characters met grim fates—one crushed by an enormous globe, the other vaporized by a laser. His involvement sparked a cascade of celebrity sign‑ups, including Danny DeVito, Glenn Close, Jack Black, Michael J. Fox, Natalie Portman, Pierce Brosnan, and Sarah Jessica Parker.
8 Planet of the Apes Needed an Ape School
When 20th Century Fox gave Burton the reins to reinterpret Pierre Boulle’s Planet of the Apes, he insisted on authentic ape mannerisms. To achieve this, the studio sent the principal cast—Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, and David Warner—to a specialized “ape school.” Over six weeks, a former Cirque du Soleil gymnast coached them on how to talk, walk, and fight like primates.
The stunt coordinator, Charles Croughwell, explained that each species of ape moves uniquely. The team studied zoo animals meticulously, noting that orangutans, gorillas, and chimps each possess distinct postures. Actors initially walked like humans, so they were instructed to roll their feet outward, creating a bow‑legged gait—cowboys, Croughwell joked, make natural apes because of their stance.
The physical transformation proved grueling. Actors endured four‑hour makeup sessions daily, then worked late into the night, often until nine o’clock. Removing the heavy prosthetics required another hour and a half. Roth, portraying the ape warlord General Thade, described his suit as painfully tight, leading to trapped nerves and even a herniated vertebra—comparing the sensation to “being punched in the arm continuously.” Burton himself suffered a rib fracture after attempting to mimic an ape’s waddle.
7 Jack Nicholson Made a Killing as the Joker
Before committing to Batman in 1988, Jack Nicholson was already a Hollywood heavyweight, with credits like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Shining. This clout allowed him to negotiate a staggering $6 million salary—less than his usual $10 million, but he also secured a share of the box‑office and merchandise profits. His schedule was even arranged around Los Angeles Lakers games, ensuring he never arrived on set before nine a.m.
Batman grossed over $400 million worldwide. Estimates suggest Nicholson pocketed between $60 million and $90 million from his performance, with additional earnings from the surge in Joker toy sales. Adjusted for inflation, his total compensation approaches $200 million.
6 Johnny Depp Had a Bad Time on Edward Scissorhands
Johnny Depp’s breakout role as the gentle misfit Edward Scissorhands came about thanks to Winona Ryder, who advocated for her then‑boyfriend during casting. The studio had originally eyed Tom Cruise, while Michael Jackson reportedly lobbied for the part—Burton ignored his calls. Filming began in 1990 in Lutz, Florida, where Depp’s makeup routine took roughly three hours, with an additional hour to stitch his leather‑clad outfit.
The sweltering Florida heat proved brutal. Depp collapsed while shooting a chase scene, a predictable outcome given his costume’s composition of black leather and repurposed sofa material. The entire crew suffered: both Burton and veteran actor Vincent Price fainted on separate occasions, the latter’s frailty exacerbated by the intense studio lights. Screenwriter Caroline Thompson developed a severe heat rash, joking, “I felt like Linda Blair in The Exorcist.”
One particularly grueling sequence involved Edward’s neighbors force‑feeding him their home‑cooked meals. The scene was shot so many times that Depp ended up vomiting the food back out, adding a nauseating layer to the production’s woes.
5 An Entire Town Was Built for Sleepy Hollow
In 1998, Burton embarked on a re‑imagining of Washington Irving’s classic, Sleepy Hollow. Although the crew initially scouted Upstate New York, the locations failed to capture the story’s ominous tone. Production shifted to the United Kingdom, aligning with Burton’s affection for low‑budget British horror of the 1950s and ’60s. There, the team erected a full‑scale Sleepy Hollow village from scratch over three months, replicating 19th‑century Dutch architecture around a modest duck pond in Buckinghamshire.
Beyond the exterior sets, many outdoor scenes were captured on sound stages. Indoor sets recreated the church graveyard, wheat fields, a snow‑blanketed battlefield, and the Tree of the Dead. Real trees populated most forest shots, but larger ones were fabricated from molded oak, standing up to 30 feet tall. These massive fiberglass structures were installed inside Leavesden’s sound stage, reinforced with steel frames and layered with authentic branches. Burton noted the set became so convincing that it turned into an actual forest, attracting bugs and birds.
4 Squirrels Underwent Training for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Burton’s adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory features a whimsical Nut Sorting Room where squirrels separate good nuts from the bad. To lend authenticity, a team of animal trainers taught a troupe of 40 squirrels to sort walnuts on cue.
The trainers began by bottle‑feeding many of the squirrels from birth, forging a strong bond reminiscent of a parent‑child relationship. Additional squirrels were rescued from shelters across England. Using positive reinforcement, each successful task earned the critters a treat. Head trainer Michael Alexander estimated roughly 2,000 repetitions were required before a single squirrel could reliably place a nut in the correct slot. The entire training regimen spanned about 19 weeks.
3 Disney Fired Burton for Making Frankenweenie
The 2012 feature‑length animation Frankenweenie tells the tale of a boy who revives his beloved dog, Sparky, using a daring formula. The resurrected canine returns with Frankenstein‑style bolts and stitches, only for the formula to fall into the wrong hands, unleashing a horde of monsters upon the town.
Burton originally crafted a live‑action short version of Frankenweenie in 1984 while still employed at Disney. He secured funding for the project, but studio executives balked at its darkness, deeming it unsuitable for children. Consequently, Disney terminated his employment, accusing him of wasteful spending. The studio later softened its stance, releasing the original short in 1992 after Burton’s directorial fame blossomed.
The story draws deeply from Burton’s own childhood experiences. The animation team even visited his hometown of Burbank, California, to capture authentic details. Burton’s own dog, Peppi, entered his life at age three and later died from canine distemper. He reflected, “If I could have brought him back to life, I would have. I did it in film instead.”
2 Alice in Wonderland’s Green Screens Were Maddening
Burton’s 2010 re‑imagining of Alice in Wonderland amassed a staggering $1 billion worldwide, but its production leaned heavily on green‑screen technology—approximately 90 percent of the film employed this technique. The shoot spanned just 40 days, after which visual effects teams spent nine months layering detailed backdrops onto the green‑screen plates.
Actors often found themselves performing against empty space, with little tangible reference. Entire characters, such as the Cheshire Cat and White Rabbit, were rendered digitally. The pervasive green screens also caused physical discomfort; Johnny Depp, portraying the Mad Hatter, confessed, “I have to spew dialogue while stepping over a dolly track and a guy holding a card—talking to a piece of tape. The green beats you up; you’re kind of befuddled at the end of the day.” Burton mitigated his own nausea by wearing lavender‑tinted glasses.
VFX supervisor Ken Ralston noted the nine‑month post‑production window demanded immense flexibility, allowing the team to conjure Lewis Carroll’s fantastical world from thin air. While he admitted the process was “visually and psychologically exhausting,” he asserted the final product would have been impossible without the green‑screen approach.
1 Batman Returns Flew Penguins Aboard a Cooled Plane
Burton agreed to helm a second Batman film only if it ventured into new, unexpected territory—enter the Penguin (Danny DeVito) and his legion of penguin commandos. In Batman Returns, the Dark Knight battles an army of penguins intent on bombing Gotham City, a sequence that demanded extraordinary logistical planning.
The production sourced live penguins from an English animal shelter, transporting them aboard a refrigerated aircraft to keep the birds comfortable during the flight. Los Angeles’s scorching 37 °C (100 °F) summer heat necessitated additional on‑set air conditioning. The penguins were housed in chilled trailers and even provided with swimming pools. The sound stages themselves were cooled to near‑freezing temperatures, forcing cast and crew to adapt to the unusual environment.
To coax the penguins across the set, fresh fish deliveries arrived directly from the docks. When live birds proved impractical, skilled animatronics stepped in. Legendary VFX artist Stan Winston designed robotic penguins so realistic they fooled the real animals, even leading to an emperor penguin nesting beside a mechanical counterpart.
Burton later reflected that Batman Returns marked his final foray into the comic‑book franchise. He criticized the studio’s shift toward treating the sequel as a mere merchandise vehicle, recounting McDonald’s executives asking, “What’s all that black stuff coming out of the Penguin’s mouth?” This commercialization, he felt, signaled a new order, and he was not invited back for another Batman installment.