Tim Burton...and Maleficent?

By our guest blogger, Colin George

Perhaps it's merely further confirmation that Tim Burton has forever resigned himself to reimagining classic films, but news recently broke that the prolific director, whose take on “Alice in Wonderland” is set to open this March, will be partnering with Disney once again to remake their seminal animated film “Sleeping Beauty,” with a potentially interesting twist...

Titled “Maleficent,” the film will allegedly go the “Wicked” route, bringing the evil queen to the forefront of the story, and thus relegating the slumbering princess and her suitor to the back-burner.

What isn’t clear yet is what this means for the backlog of other upcoming Tim Burton projects, including “Dark Shadows,” which is based on the Gothic '60s soap opera, and the feature-length adaptation of his short, “Frankenweenie.”

Personally, of the above, this is the project I’m most interested in seeing made, but conversely, the one I’m most apprehensive about Burton taking. After all, if “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and the “Alice” trailer are any indication, “Maleficent” will be a heavily computer-animated eye-sore with characters as deep as the flat screen monitors they were born to.

But to be fair, Burton has won me over in the past, with thoughtful pieces like “Big Fish” and “Ed Wood,” which manage to balance drama with his signature weirdness. In a perfect world, I’d love to see “Maleficent” handled in the stop-motion style of the Henry Selick/Burton collaboration, “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” but I won't hold my breath.

Either way, we can no doubt look forward to seeing Burton branded “Maleficent” merchandise cluttering our local “Hot Topic” soon.