Tim Burton’s upcoming stop motion remake of his own 1984 short film, Frankenweenie, is definitely one of the most interesting projects that we can look forward to seeing next year.
We got our first official look at the film, which will be released in black and white in 3D, back in October with some brilliant images, before which we’d got a look at the film’s logo this summer and some concept art just over a year earlier.
We’ve now got some terrific new images from the set to share with you, courtesy of ShockTillYouDrop, who’ve visited the set and spoken to some of the filmmaking team:
“Tim always wanted to make it into a feature and into an animated feature,” explains Producer Allison Abate, “We had to open the story up a little bit. Pretty much, the whole first act is like the short. We meet Victor and his beloved dog, Sparky. There’s a terrible car accident tragedy and the dog gets killed. Of course Victor, being a clever guy, figures out how to reincarnate him. Where the story diverges is that Victor is now desperate to keep his dog a secret. He doesn’t really know if what he’s done is a great thing. He doesn’t tell his parents and he doesn’t tell his school friends… Of course, the other kids at school get wind of it and kind of want in.”
While it was only teased on the set visit, there’s every indication that we’ll be seeing a lot more pet-based monsters than just the titular canine. Each of Victor’s friends is based on an icon of classic horror cinema and endeavors to create a monster representative of that fact. Sketches on the production office wall point to everything from mummified hamsters to Gamera-scaled turtles.
Sounds pretty brilliant to me. If you’d like to read their full set report, you can click on over here. As he often does, the director is reteaming with a number of people with whom he’s worked in the past, and those lending their voices to the film include Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau, Conchata Ferrell, and James Hiroyuki Liao.
Burton is naturally a renowned filmmaker, and we can look forward to seeing not one but two of his films next year. First, Dark Shadows will be coming to the big screen on 11th May, and then Frankenweenie will be following at the tail-end of the year on 5th October. These new images are every bit as brilliant as the first we saw just over a month ago, and show a huge amount of promise for the film. The level of detail and care that has clearly been taken to create these characters and sets is truly impressive. As usual, click to enlarge. Enjoy.
