“Mai The Psychic Girl”
An anime-adapted musical by ’80s New Wave favorites Sparks and directed by Burton? It could have happened. “Mai The Psychic Girl,” which follows a fourteen-year-old psychic chased by the sinister Wisdom Alliance, was one of the first manga series to be published in English, helping to popularize the form in the West. Sparks were early adopters, intending to turn the series into a movie musical, and persuaded Carolco Pictures to pick up the rights in August 1991, with Burton coming on board to develop the project. However, Burton went over to Disney for “Ed Wood” and “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” and by the time he came out again, Carolco had gone under. Francis Ford Coppola developed the project for a while in the 1990s, but as recently as 2010 it was reported that Burton was again developing the project, although it’s unclear if it’s as the Sparks musical, or as a more traditional adaptation.
“Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian”
After the success of his breakout film, “Beetlejuice,” Burton remained interested in a potential sequel, and after “Batman” became a smash hit, he hired writer Jonathan Gems, a frequent collaborator at the time who’d done uncredited rewrite work on the superhero flick, to develop a “Beetlejuice” follow-up. According to an interview with Gems in Fangoria, “Tim thought it would be funny to match the surfing backdrop of a beach movie with some sort of German Expressionism, because they’re totally wrong together,” and the two came up with a sequel where the Deetz family (Jeffrey Jones, Catherine O’Hara and Winona Ryder) move to Hawaii and disturb the spirit of a sorcerer, forcing them to revive Beetlejuice to battle against him in a surf contest. Michael Keaton and Winona Ryder agreed to return in principle, and Burton brought on “Heathers” writer Daniel Waters to polish the script. However, both he and the director ended up being waylaid with “Batman Returns,” and the Geffen Film Company brought on ‘SNL’ writer Pamela Norris to take another pass, but it wasn’t enough to get the film the green light. In 1997, Gems said that, “You really couldn’t do it now anyway. Winona is too old for the role, and the only way they could make it would be to totally recast it.” But while we may never see Beetlejuice in Hawaii, talk of a sequel has been revived recently with reports that Burton’s developing a script with “Dark Shadows” writer Seth Grahame-Smith.
“Geek Love”
One of the most beloved cult novels of the last 25 years, the National Book Award-nominated Katherine Dunn book “Geek Love” sounds like classic Tim Burton material: a Todd Browning-ish tale about a group of children whose carnival owner parents altered their genes to create their own freak show. With a cast of characters that include Arty, who has flippers for hands and feet and sets up a cult where the followers have their limbs amputated, Siamese twins Elly and Iphy, hunchbacked albino dwarf Oly, the protagonist, and telekinetic youngest daughter Chick, there were a host of memorable parts, but also a plot that seemed like it had the potential to be the director’s masterpiece. Burton wasn’t the first helmer on board — curiously, “Night Court” star Harry Anderson optioned it to direct, and wrote a screenplay. But Burton soon picked up the slack, and it’s remained a consistent interest. However, it seems to be something that he’s a little afraid of doing, telling Ain’t It Cool News in 2006 that, “I think it always just felt a bit daunting. If there’s a book that you really love, there’s something quite daunting about doing it justice in a certain way. I’ve sort of played around with it, but you get sidetracked and stuff. It is something that I do love. I do love the book. I just need to get rid of that fear factor of destroying a great book.”