Tim Burton has spoken out against his previous professional relationship with Disney, claiming that he will most likely never work as a director there again.

Over the weekend, the director received the honorary Prix Lumière while in France for the Lumiere Festival. He compared working for the company to the 2019 Disney character Dumbo being imprisoned in “this horrible big circus” in his remarks to the media on Saturday.

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Who is Tim Burton?

Born on August 25, 1958, Timothy Walter Burton is a filmmaker and artist from the United States.

Burton was born in Burbank, California, to Jean Burton, a cat-themed gift shop owner, and William Burton, a former minor league baseball player who worked for the Burbank Parks and Recreation Department.

Burton used to make short films in his backyard at 2101 North Evergreen Street when he was a kid, using crude stop-motion animation techniques or shooting on 8 mm film without sound.

Burton went to Burbank High School but was not particularly bright. He was a member of the Burbank High School water polo team.

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Burton is best known for his gothic fantasy and horror films, which include Beetlejuice (1988), Edward Scissorhands (1990), The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and Dark Shadows (2009). 

Burton was also the director of the superhero films Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), the sci-fi film Planet of the Apes (2001), the fantasy-drama Big Fish (2003), the musical adventure film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and the fantasy films Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2012). 

He frequently collaborated with Winona Ryder, Johnny Depp, Lisa Marie, Helena Bonham Carter, and other actors. Danny Elfman composed the music for all but three of Burton’s movies. The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, a poetry collection written and illustrated by Burton, was published by the British publishing firm Faber and Faber in 1997. In 2009, a collection of Burton’s sketches, drawings, and other artwork titled The Art of Tim Burton was made available.

A follow-up book to that one, The Napkin Art of Tim Burton: Things You Think About in a Bar, was published in 2015. It includes sketches Burton created on napkins at bars and restaurants he visited. His accomplishments include wins for an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, and two BAFTAs.

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Burton was married to the artist Lena Gieseke, who was born in Germany. Their four-year marriage came to an end in 1991. He afterwards moved in with actress and model Lisa Marie, who appeared in a number of his movies from 1992 through 2001, including Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood, and Mars Attacks.

Burton met English actress Helena Bonham Carter while making the movie Planet of the Apes, and the two fell in love.

Burton and Bonham Carter are parents to two kids: a daughter born in 2007 and a son born in 2003 both called William Raymond after Burton and Bonham Carter’s fathers. In December 2014, a spokesman for Bonham Carter claimed that she and Burton had amicably split earlier that year.