I’m not quite sure how it happened, but last week’s Open Forum Friday managed to morph into a heated debate about whether or not Tim Burton and Johnny Depp are overrated. You’ll certainly never hear me call Tim Burton overrated, simply because of the number of classic movies he has given birth to over the years, but I will admit he’s had a few stinkers and hasn’t delivered anything overly exciting for a while now. Well, now there’s a rumour that has cropped up around the internet this week about what his next feature film is likely to be, and inside sources indicate that he may be working on a new stop motion project based on his short film Frankenweenie (sort of a send up of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein).

I can’t remember now if I’ve seen Frankenweenie or not (I believe it was included on The Nightmare Before Christmas DVD, which I don’t own) but I think that Burton critics are likely to see this as another example of Burton relying heavily on his previous successes without finding anything new to offer us. While I can’t necessarily argue with that, I do still enjoy Burton’s stop motion work, if for no other reason than because no one else is doing feature films in this format. Corpse Bride was somewhat predictable and for the most part typical Burton, but the visuals still managed to hold my attention for its rather brief running time. What do you think? Is this a bad idea, or is Frankenweenie something that deserves a full-length adaptation?

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