The LA Times has a great interview with Tim Burton where he talks about the twins, Tweedledee and Tweedledum and where he got the idea from.

“I kept thinking about the twins in ‘The Shining,’ ” Burton said, referring to the chilling Stanley Kubrick horror film that celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. “But really any kind of twins. There’s always something scary about them, in a way. Or there can be.”

Tim Burton won the Winsor McCay Award for the 37th Annual Annie Awards ceremony. Jeffrey Katzenberg and Bruce Timm were also recipients of the prestigious award, which is given to those who have made an impact on the art and industry of animation. Unfortunately, Tim wasn’t able to attend the ceremony, but instead he did a short film as his acceptance in the style of a Japanese horror film. See the video HERE
Congratulations! I hope you win many many more awards, Tim. You deserve it!

News Times are reporting that The Museum of Modern Art will be holding a special screening of “Frankenweenie” this Sunday!

The Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53rd St., is screening films in conjunction with its ongoing Tim Burton exhibit.

Sunday at 2:30 p.m., the museum is presenting a double-bill of “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas” with the director’s bizarre 1984 animated short, “Frankenweenie,” which first brought him to the attention of Hollywood movie executives. The movie scared the executives at Disney which funded it and became a legend as the studio refused to screen it. Years later, they proudly released it on video.

“Frankenweenie” combines animation with live actors including the late great Joseph Maher, who lived in Fairfield for many years.

Film free with $20 MOMA admission.

For more information, go to www.moma.org.

Over at Interview Magazine they bring us an interview with Tim Burton and some great new photoshoot outtakes.

In 1984, Paul Reubens was looking for a director. The film in development was Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985), and Reubens, who had been working on the perversely juvenile conceptual-art project for about 15 years, was desperate to find someone he could trust to direct it with style. So, as people in Los Angeles do, he asked around at a party. One of the guests had just seen Frankenweenie—Tim Burton’s 1984 live-action short about a dog that is brought back to life. Burton had no previous experience as a feature-film director, but the two men immediately bonded. Only 25 at the time, Burton got the job, and the pair watched as their strange but imaginative film earned more than $40 million at the box office.

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According to ABC News, Tim Burton is to head this year’s Cannes film festival jury.

PARIS (Reuters) – U.S. director Tim Burton is to head this year’s Cannes film festival jury, organizers said on Tuesday.

Burton, who made his name with gothic fantasies ranging from “Edward Scissorhands” to “Sleepy Hollow” and “Batman” and whose “Ed Wood” was shown at Cannes in 1995 said he was looking forward to the two-week movie marathon that lay ahead.

“After spending my early life watching triple features and 48-hour horror movie marathons, I’m finally ready for this,” he said in a statement.

“When you think of Cannes you think of world cinema. And as films have always been like dreams to me, this is a dream come true,” he said.

The Cannes film festival runs from May 12-23.

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Fear Net has listed four reasons to why we should be excited for Tim Burton’s “Dark Shadows”.

Twilight fans, you might think that no one has ever loved vampires like you do, that there’s no way your parents could understand the passion you have for sweet, tortured Edward Cullen. That’s because you probably haven’t head of Dark Shadows.

Decades before Stephenie Meyer put pen to paper, the 1960s gothic soap opera was entertaining daytime TV fans with tales of witches, werewolves, and, yes, blood-sucking fiends of the night. There have been many attempts to remake the series since its original airing, but with the recent vampire craze comes a new stab at the Dark Shadows world – and this one stands a real shot of happening because Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are partnering to remake it.

The reasons for their involvement are simple: Burton was an old-school fan of the series, and as a boy Depp was obsessed with the central character, vampire Barnabas Collins, originally played by Jonathan Frid, who made the pulses of young ladies race even as he failed to resist his darker urges. Production on the film begins soon, with the film destined for a 2011 release. While initially skeptical about the film, we’ve started getting excited. And here are four big reasons why:

1. Barnabas Collins = the original vampire in love. The original Dark Shadows struggled to find an audience in its first year, but the appeal of a hot, tortured vampire is apparently cross-generational.

When Barnabas was introduced to the show in 1967, he was initially portrayed as a properly evil creature of the night. But when he became romantically infatuated with a waitress who bore a striking resemblance to his long-lost love (yeah, The Vampire Diaries didn’t call dibs on that storyline). The writers and producers of the show sought to strike a balance between his true vampire nature (Barnabas, even at his most virtuous, was no vegetarian) and his new passion, and thus television’s first creature of the night who longed for love was born. Young women around the world would never be the same again. We’ve seen a thousand different takes on it since, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Underworld, and while it never gets old, maybe it’s time for the O.G. version to get another stab at fame.
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Worst Previews reports that the filming of “Dark Shadows” will begin in September.

During a press junket for “The Young Victoria,” producer Graham King confirmed that Tim Burton’s next project is “Dark Shadows,” a film that will once again re-team Burton with Johnny Depp.

“We’re actually going to shoot that film next September/October with Tim Burton and Johnny,” said King. “We’ve been working on the script a lot, even though he’s working on ‘Alice.’ We’ve been given a script. John August (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride) wrote the first screenplay. We’re making some changes, but the film’s going to be in production, as I say, September or October of next year.”

The new film is based on the cult ’60s supernatural TV show created by Dan Curtis that aired weekdays on ABC, from 1966 to 1971. With over 1,225 episodes, “Dark Shadows” was a highly atmospheric, spooky soap that featured gothic horror staples like vampires, monsters, witches, werewolves, ghosts and zombies.

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In this ‘behind the scenes’ interview he talks about his art inspirations and work.