Tim Burton is speaking out against his previous employment relationship with Disney and claims it is highly unlikely that he will ever work as a director there again.

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

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“It’s gotten to be very homogenized, very consolidated. There’s less room for different types of things,” Burton stated as per Deadline.

Burton stated that the possibilities of him participating in the MCU in the future were minimal given that Disney is currently primarily focused on its tentpole brands, primarily those found in the Star Wars and Marvel cinematic universes.

“I can only handle one universe; I can’t handle multiple universes”, Burton added.

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Burton last worked with Disney on the live-action remake of Dumbo in 2019. The movie starred Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton, Danny DeVito, Eva Green, and Alan Arkin, performed poorly at the box office and was panned by critics.

The Beetlejuice director began his career as a junior animator for Disney films such as 1981’s The Fox and the Hound. He went on to direct films such as A Nightmare Before Christmas in 1993, James and the Giant Peach in 1996, Frankenweenie in 2012, and “Alice in Wonderland” in 2010 (along with a sequel in 2016), among others.

“I was hired and fired several times during my time there,” he added. “The thing about ‘Dumbo,’ is that it’s the reason I think my days with Disney are over; I realised I was Dumbo, that I was working in this horrible big circus, and I needed to escape.” On some levels, that film is quite autobiographical.”

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The director’s next project, the Addams Family spinoff series Wednesday, is set to premiere on Netflix on November 23.