Director/producer/writer Tim Burton, whose quirky films have ranged from adventurous to artistic to downright frightening, sank his hands and feet into the cement in the forecourt of the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.
The giants of the Hollywood film industry have for decades been immortalized with the same kind of cement ceremony.
Burton’s appearance Thursday came ahead of the planned Sept. 30 release of his next film, “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.”
Burton, 58, has been nominated for two Oscars in his career, both for animated features — “Corpse Bride” and “Frankenweenie.” He was nominated for a best director Golden Globe for “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”
He is well-known for his artistic — sometimes colorful and sometimes dark — directing style on films ranging from “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” to “Beetlejuice” to “Edward Scissorhands” to “Batman Returns” to “Ed Wood.” He also directed the darkly comic “Mars Attacks!,” the big-budget “Planet of the Apes,” the remake “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” the creepy “Dark Shadows” and the uplifting “Big Fish.”
Burton said little at the afternoon ceremony, but Winona Ryder, who appeared in several of the director’s features, heaped praise on him.
“Tim understands the human heart in a way I have never seen, certainly on screen,” she said. “He knows the pain of the misunderstood, of the odd and even of the mad, and he celebrates them in a way that is both totally unique, so very very tender, sometimes terrifying and very often hilarious. I can’t think of two more blessed and treasured hands to be submerged in cement. So be careful, Tim, because we need those.”
–City News Service