WTF: Tim Burton to Direct a Live-Action Dumbo Remake

In which I report on the biggest brain-bashers in entertainment.

WTF is a new article series that will bring to light the weirdest and most messed up entertainment news and trivia that I can dredge up.  While it can be, like it is today, a news item that could have just as easily been an Extra, Extra! article, it could just as easily be a piece on Bruce Willis' greatest hits album or the fact that Die Hard is based on a novel.  No matter what it is, though, it's always going to be something that makes you stop and ask "WTF???"

Disney's been doing pretty well for themselves in the realm of live-action remakes lately.  Maleficent and now Cinderella have both been box office successes and everybody's been talking about how absurdly good the casting for their remake of Beauty and the Beast is.  But this is one's a real head-scratcher: Tim Burton is going to direct a live-action remake of Dumbo.

Yes, Dumbo: that movie about the flying baby elephant that gets drunk and hangs out with racistly drawn crows.  And yes, Tim Burton: the mastermind behind Batman, Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

I can't come up with any suitable reason for what this is a thing, except for maybe Burton's profound box office success with Alice in Wonderland compared to the paltry returns of movies like Big Eyes.  People evidently want big, showy, WTF Tim Burton and not the quietly contemplated, historical biopic one, regardless of which one was actually the better of the two.

Despite everything that Disney's been doing right lately, I can't bring myself to get excited about this project.  Although a unique and talented filmmaker, Burton has proved to be hopelessly uneven with the project he takes, especially in recent years.  For every Ed Wood and Sweeney Todd, there's a Planet of the Apes and a Mars Attacks.

And although Dumbo is a childhood favorite of most, I never sat through it until a few years ago, and it simply never endeared itself to me in the same way.  I still can't believe that this got green-lit before far superior classics like The Little Mermaid or Mulan.  All I can hope for is that they come to their senses before this gets too far into production and switch the project to something better.

So what are your thoughts on the newest Disney remake?  Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

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