Tim Burton considered retiring from the movie business after making the 2019 live-action remake of Dumbo.

The Edward Scissorhands filmmaker admitted to Variety that he considered retiring from directing until the Netflix series Wednesday came along and “reenergised” him.

“Honestly, after Dumbo, I really didn’t know. 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,” he joked. “But this did reenergise me. 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.”

Dumbo, the live-action remake of Disney’s classic animation, starred Eva Green, Colin Farrell and Danny DeVito.

Burton described Wednesday as a “creative health camp” because he came away from the shoot inspired again, leading him to write a sequel to his 1988 fantasy comedy Beetlejuice.

The follow-up, titled Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, reunites Burton with his original cast members Michael Keaton, Catherine O’Hara and Winona Ryder as well as his Wednesday star Jenna Ortega. Newcomers to the franchise include Justin Theroux and Willem Dafoe.

It will premiere at the Venice Film Festival next week before being released in cinemas on 6 September.

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