im Burton really shouldn't be a blockbuster director. The guy has one of the oddest directorial visions in Hollywood. His movies play like the childhood fantasies of a latchkey kid raised on a steady diet of cartoons, horror movies, and German Expressionism. He brought Pee-wee to the big screen, discovered Batman's dark heart decades before The Dark Knight, and introduced the world to the eccentric acting of Johnny Depp. His movies really should play to marginal audiences of social outcasts and movie geeks, yet somehow the guy is one of the most commercially successful directors of all time. His Batman was such a massive success that it allowed his sensibility to enter the mainstream. He has a generation of imitators, and despite his latter day cinematic sins, the man has to be regarded as one of the most interesting filmmakers to ever work in Hollywood.

Whenever Burton announces a new project it is immediately clear whether or not the film will work. Some stories fit into his gothic aesthetic and others do not (his remake of Charlie And The Chocolate Factory was an embarrassment, but at least he never got to make that Nicholas Cage Superman movie). When Burton announced he would be directing a new version Alice And Wonderland there was no possible reaction other than excitement. While Walt Disney and the incredible Jan Svankmajer had already put their definitive stamp on the story, the source material is so rich with imagination and visual possibilities that there is plenty of room for Burton to play.