The Tim Burton-Johnny Depp team has given us great movies over the years, including “Edward Scissorhands,” “Sweeney Todd,” “Sleepy Hollow,” and, their magnum opus, “Ed Wood.”
Burton was asked about the controversies regarding Depp, and he seems to be comparing the ostracizing of his friend to lynch mobs:
“Here’s the thing,” explains Burton. “When I was a child, I always had an image of the angry villagers in Frankenstein... I always used to think about society that way, as the angry village. You see it more and more. It’s a very, very strange human dynamic, a human trait that I don’t quite like or understand.”
Depp was quickly deemed persona non grata in Hollywood because of former wife Amber Heard’s domestic violence accusations. He had to go to court to get his good name back, but, even after his victory, he’s still not very much welcomed in many industry circles.
The pre-trial narrative was that Depp abused Heard and that she was a #MeToo survivor, but perceptions clearly changed, post-trial, in Depp’s favor. That, more or less, seems to have remained, at least amongst media circles.
The friendship between Burton and Depp once ran very deep. “He was a bit similar to me, kind of suburban, white trash, whatever – we connected on some kind of level,” he had told Deadline in 2022.
Burton had also previously alluded to the possibility of working with Depp again, saying he’d gladly partner up with the actor "if the right thing was around." Maybe Depp and Burton’s shared disdain for Disney will bring them together again to make a fresh new original film. That’s the hope.