Michael Keaton has worked with director Tim Burton on a handful of movies, including the upcoming Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, but he told The New York Times that he thought he “sucked” in one particular Burton film.

The film in question: Dumbo. The 2019 live-action adaptation of the classic Disney movie featured an all-star cast including Colin Farrell, Eva Green, Alan Arkin, and Danny DeVito. Keaton played V.A. Vandevere, a greedy and ruthless amusement park owner who seeks to exploit Dumbo. “I love working with Tim so much, but I don’t think we ever really analyzed why we work pretty well together; we just do,” Keaton said. “I think I let him down on one movie, but that’s just me, and it bugs me to this day. I was clueless on ‘Dumbo.’ I sucked in ‘Dumbo.’” In response, Burton said, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about, but whatever.”

Burton doesn’t consider Dumbo to be his finest hour either, as he recently said he considered calling it quits after the film. “Honestly, after ‘Dumbo,’ I really didn’t know,” Burton said. “I thought that could have been it, really. I could have retired, or become… well, I wouldn’t have become an animator again, that’s over.” The director added that working on the Wednesday series for Netflix helped reconnect him to making things. “We went off to Romania and it felt like it was a creative health camp,” Burton said. “It went so well.”

Burton continued, “Oftentimes, when you get into Hollywood, you try to be responsible to what you’re doing with the budget and everything else but sometimes you might lose yourself a little bit. This reinforced the feeling for me that it’s important that I do what I want to do, because then everybody will benefit.“

Our own Chris Bumbray thought Keaton did a fine job in Dumbo, saying the actor “seems to be playing the type of Tim Burton role that would have usually gone to Johnny Depp. The difference between him and Depp is that Keaton, while over-the-top and funny, also knows when to dial it way down and reveal a human side. He adopts a flamboyant persona, but you see him slip in and out of it enough to make him seem real rather than a caricature.” You can check out the rest of his review right here.

Here’s the official synopsis for Beetlejuice Beetljuice: “Beetlejuice is back! After an unexpected family tragedy, three generations of the Deetz family return home to Winter River. Still haunted by Beetlejuice, Lydia’s life is turned upside down when her rebellious teenage daughter, Astrid, discovers the mysterious model of the town in the attic and the portal to the Afterlife is accidentally opened. With trouble brewing in both realms, it’s only a matter of time until someone says Beetlejuice’s name three times and the mischievous demon returns to unleash his very own brand of mayhem.” The film will be released in U.S. theaters on September 6th. The first reactions have been quite positive, with our own Eric Walkuski calling it a “welcome return to zany form for Burton.“

Do you think Michael Keaton “sucked” in Dumbo?

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