Age, Biography, and Wiki
Tim Burton was born on August 25, 1958, in Burbank, California. As of 2025, he is 66 years old. Burton is celebrated for his unique visual style and storytelling ability, which have captivated audiences worldwide. He has been active in the film industry since the early 1980s and has become synonymous with visually stunning and often eccentric films.
| Occupation | Film Producer |
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| Date of Birth | 25 August 1958 |
| Age | 66 Years |
| Birth Place | Burbank, California, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Virgo |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
While specific details about Tim Burton's height and weight are not universally agreed upon, he is generally reported to be around 6 feet (1.83 meters) tall. His physical appearance often reflects his artistic personality, with a distinctive style that includes his signature black hair and gothic attire.
| Height | 83 m |
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Dating & Relationship Status
Tim Burton was in a long-term relationship with actress Helena Bonham Carter from 2001 to 2014. Although they were not formally married, they had two children together. After their separation, Bonham Carter received significant assets, including real estate valued at approximately $20 million.
Planet of the Apes was a commercial success, grossing $68 million in its opening weekend and eventually it earned $180 million in North America and $362 million worldwide. The film however has received mixed reviews and is widely considered inferior to the first adaptation of the novel. In 2003, Burton directed Big Fish, based on the novel Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions by Daniel Wallace. The film is about a father telling the story of his life to his son using exaggeration and color. Starring Ewan McGregor as young Edward Bloom and Albert Finney as an older Edward Bloom, the film also stars Jessica Lange, Billy Crudup, Danny DeVito, Alison Lohman and Marion Cotillard. Big Fish received four Golden Globe nominations as well as an Academy Award nomination for Elfman's score. The film was also the second collaboration between Burton and Helena Bonham Carter, who played the characters of Jenny and the Witch, and Burton and Danny DeVito, who played Amos Calloway the circus ringleader.
Released in 2005, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is an adaptation of the book of the same name by Roald Dahl. Starring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka, Freddie Highmore as Charlie Bucket, and Deep Roy as the Oompa-Loompas, the film generally took a more faithful approach to the source material than the 1971 adaptation, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, although some liberties were taken, such as adding Wonka's issue with his father (played by Christopher Lee). Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was later nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design. The film made over $207 million domestically. Filming proved difficult as Burton, Depp, and Danny Elfman had to work on this and Burton's Corpse Bride (2005) at the same time, which was Burton's first full-length stop motion film as a director, featuring the voices of Johnny Depp as Victor and Helena Bonham Carter as Emily.
Burton began filming Dark Shadows, a feature film adaptation of the 1960s television series of the same name, in May 2011. In addition to starring Burton regulars Depp and Bonham Carter, the film saw Burton reunite with Batman Returns star Michelle Pfeiffer, while Burton once again collaborated with composer Danny Elfman, production designer Rick Heinrichs, and costume designer Colleen Atwood. The film was released on May 11, 2012, and grossed $245 million worldwide from a $150 million budget. Burton also co-produced Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter with Timur Bekmambetov, who also served as director (they previously worked together in 9). The film, released on June 22, 2012, was based on the novel by screenwriter and novelist Seth Grahame-Smith, who wrote the film's screenplay and also authored Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The film starred Benjamin Walker as Abraham Lincoln, Anthony Mackie as William H. Johnson, Joseph Mawle as Lincoln's father Thomas, Robin McLeavy as Lincoln's mother, Nancy, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Lincoln's love interest (and later wife), Mary Ann Todd. The film received mixed reviews and performed poorly at the box office. He then remade his 1984 short film Frankenweenie as a feature-length stop motion film, distributed by Walt Disney Pictures. Burton has said, "The film is based on a memory that I had when I was growing up and with my relationship with a dog that I had." The film was released on October 5, 2012, and met with positive reviews.
Burton directed the 2014 biographical drama film Big Eyes about American artist Margaret Keane (Amy Adams), whose work was fraudulently claimed in the 1950s and 1960s by her then-husband, Walter Keane (Christoph Waltz), and their heated divorce trial after Margaret accused Walter of stealing credit for her paintings. The script was written by the screenwriters behind Burton's Ed Wood, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. Filming began in Vancouver, British Columbia, in mid-2013. The film was distributed by The Weinstein Company and released in U.S. theaters on December 25, 2014. It received generally positive reviews from critics.
Burton was married to Lena Gieseke, a German-born artist. Their marriage ended in 1991 after four years. He went on to live with model and actress Lisa Marie; she acted in the films he made during their relationship from 1992 to 2001, most notably in Sleepy Hollow, Ed Wood, and Mars Attacks!. Burton developed a romantic relationship with English actress Helena Bonham Carter, whom he met while filming Planet of the Apes. Lisa Marie responded in 2005 by holding an auction of personal belongings that Burton had left behind, much to his dismay.
Burton and Bonham Carter have two children: a son, born in 2003 and a daughter born in 2007. Bonham Carter's representative said in December 2014 that she and Burton had broken up amicably earlier that year. It is unclear whether or not they were married; Bonham Carter has used the word divorce when discussing the end of their relationship while other news outlets state that they never married. The Independent reported in September 2023 that Burton and Bonham Carter had indeed been married for years before their separation.
Burton's relationship with Italian actress and model Monica Bellucci was reported in February 2023. They met in October 2022 at the Lyon's Lumière Film Festival. Bellucci first spoke publicly about their relationship in June 2023.
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| Husband | Lena Gieseke (m. 1987-1991) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Tim Burton's net worth is estimated to be around $100 million to $113 million, depending on the source. His wealth stems primarily from his successful filmmaking career, including directing and producing numerous high-grossing films.
Career, Business, and Investments
Burton's career began with his fascination for stop-motion and live-action films. His breakthrough came with "Pee-wee's Big Adventure" (1985), followed by major hits like "Beetlejuice" (1988) and "Batman" (1989). He has continued to produce and direct a wide range of films, including "Edward Scissorhands," "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and "Corpse Bride." Outside of film, Burton has explored other creative ventures, such as writing poetry and designing art.
Timothy Walter Burton (born August 25, 1958) is an American filmmaker. Known for popularizing Goth culture in the American film industry, Burton is famous for his gothic horror and dark fantasy films. He has received numerous accolades including an Emmy Award as well as nominations for two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and three BAFTA Awards. He was honored with the Venice International Film Festival's Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in 2007 and was given the Order of Arts and Letters by Culture Minister of France in 2010.
As a preteen, Burton made short films in his backyard at 2101 North Evergreen Street, using crude stop motion animation techniques or shooting on 8 mm film without sound (one of his oldest known juvenile films is The Island of Doctor Agor, adapted from the H. G. Wells novel The Island of Doctor Moreau, which he made when he was 13 years old). Burton attended Providencia Elementary School, Luther Burbank Middle School, and Burbank High School, but was not a particularly good student. He played on the water polo team at Burbank High. Burton was an introspective person and found pleasure in artwork, painting, drawing, and watching movies. His future work would be heavily influenced by the books of such childhood heroes as Dr. Seuss and Roald Dahl, and of the visual aesthetics of silent gothic horror films, Universal Monsters movies such as Frankenstein which he would continuously tribute throughout his career, Hammer Horror films starring Christopher Lee and the horror films of Vincent Price, both of whom would star in his films, and with the latter being paid tribute in his 1982 short film Vincent. In a Hollywood Reporter article, Burton states: "I grew up watching the Universal horror movies, Japanese monster movies, and pretty much any kind of monster movie. That was my genre." Burton also said that his love of Ray Harryhausen's work got him interested in stop-motion animation at a young age.
Sleepy Hollow, released in late 1999, had a supernatural setting and starred Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane, a detective with an interest in forensic science rather than the schoolteacher of Washington Irving's original tale. With Sleepy Hollow, Burton paid homage to the horror films of the English company Hammer Films. Christopher Lee, one of Hammer's stars, was given a cameo role. A host of Burton regulars appeared in supporting roles (Michael Gough, Jeffrey Jones, and Christopher Walken, among others), and Christina Ricci was cast as Katrina van Tassel. A well-regarded supporting cast was headed by Miranda Richardson, Michael Gambon, Richard Griffiths and Ian McDiarmid. Mostly well received by critics, and with a special mention to Elfman's gothic score, the film has grossed $207 million worldwide and won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction, as well as two BAFTAs for Best Costume Design and Best Production Design. A box office success, Sleepy Hollow was also a turning point for Burton. Along with the change in his personal life (separation from actress Lisa Marie), Burton changed radically in style for his next project, leaving the haunted forests and colorful outcasts behind to go on to directing Planet of the Apes which, as Burton had repeatedly noted, was "not a remake" of the earlier film.
In October 2022, Burton announced that he would probably never work with The Walt Disney Company again after Dumbo, due to his distinctive style and working approach not matching with what Disney is currently looking for, with its focus on Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilm. He stated that "It's gotten to be very homogenized, very consolidated. There's less room for different types of things".
"Tim Burton at Seoul Museum of Art" was exhibited as a promotion of Hyundai Card at Seoul Museum of Art from December 12, 2012, to April 15, 2013, in Seoul, South Korea. This exhibition featured 862 of Burton's works including drawings, paintings, short films, sculptures, music, and costumes that have been used in the making of his feature-length movies. The exhibition was divided into three parts: the first part, "Surviving Burbank", covered his younger years, from 1958 to 1976. The second, "Beautifying Burbank", covers 1977 to 1984, including his time with CalArts and Walt Disney. The last segment, "Beyond Burbank", covers 1985 onward.
Social Network
Tim Burton is not overly active on traditional social media platforms. However, his work and personal life are frequently discussed and shared by fans and media outlets across various platforms.
Burton's next live-action short film, Frankenweenie, was released in 1984. It tells the story of a young boy who tries to revive his dog after it is run over by a car. Filmed in black-and-white, it stars Barret Oliver, Shelley Duvall (with whom he would work again in 1986, directing an episode of her television series Faerie Tale Theatre), and Daniel Stern. After Frankenweenie was completed, Disney fired Burton, under the pretext of him spending the company's resources on a film that would be too dark and scary for children to see.
Burton's ability to produce hit films with low budgets impressed studio executives, and he received his first big-budget film, Batman. The production was plagued with problems. Burton repeatedly clashed with the film's producers, Jon Peters and Peter Guber, but the most notable debacle involved casting. For the title role, Burton chose to cast Michael Keaton as Batman following their previous collaboration in Beetlejuice, despite Keaton's average physique, inexperience with action films, and reputation as a comic actor. Although Burton won in the end, the furor over the casting provoked enormous fan animosity, to the extent that Warner Brothers' share price slumped. Burton had considered it ridiculous to cast a "bulked-up" ultra-masculine man as Batman, insisting that Batman should be an ordinary man who dressed up in an elaborate bat costume to frighten criminals. Burton originally considered Brad Dourif for The Joker, but eventually cast Jack Nicholson, in a move that helped assuage fans' fears, as well as attracting older audiences not as interested in a superhero film. When the film opened in June 1989, it was backed by the biggest marketing and merchandising campaign in film history at the time, and became one of the biggest box office hits of all time, grossing over $250 million in the U.S. and $400 million worldwide (numbers not adjusted for inflation) and earning critical acclaim for the performances of both Keaton and Nicholson, as well as the film's production aspects, which won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction. The success of the film helped establish Burton as a profitable director, and it proved to be a huge influence on future superhero films, which eschewed the bright, all-American heroism of Richard Donner's Superman for a grittier, more realistic look and characters with more psychological depth. It also served as a major inspiration for the acclaimed TV series Batman: The Animated Series.
In 1990, Burton created a unique drawing which gave screenwriter Caroline Thompson inspiration to write the script for Edward Scissorhands which Burton directed, re-uniting with Winona Ryder from Beetlejuice. His friend Johnny Depp, a teen idol at the end of the 1980s due primarily to his work on the hit TV series 21 Jump Street, was cast in the title role of Edward, who was the creation of an eccentric and old-fashioned inventor (played by Vincent Price in one of his last screen appearances). Edward looked human, but was left with scissors in the place of hands due to the untimely death of his creator. Set in suburbia (and shot in Land o' Lakes, Florida), the film is largely seen as Burton's autobiography of his childhood in Burbank. Burton's idea for the character of Edward Scissorhands came from a drawing he created in high school. Depp wrote a similar comment in the foreword to Mark Salisbury's book, Burton on Burton, regarding his first meeting with Burton over the casting of the film. Edward Scissorhands is considered one of Burton's best movies by some critics. Burton has stated that this is his most personal and meaningful film because it is a representation of him not being able to communicate effectively with others as a teenager.
After the success of Batman, Burton agreed to direct the sequel for Warner Bros. on the condition that he would be granted total control. The result was Batman Returns, which featured Michael Keaton returning as Batman, and a new triad of villains: Danny DeVito (as the Penguin), Michelle Pfeiffer (as Catwoman) and Christopher Walken (as Max Shreck, an evil corporate tycoon and original character created for the film). Somewhat darker and considerably more personal than its predecessor, concerns were raised that the film might be too scary for children. Audiences were more uncomfortable at the film's overt sexuality, personified by the sleek, fetish-inspired styling of Catwoman's costume. Burton made many changes to the Penguin which would subsequently be applied to the character in both comics and television. In the comics, the penguin was an ordinary man; Burton transformed him into a freak of nature resembling a penguin with webbed, flipper-like fingers, a hooked, beak-like nose and a short, rotund body. Released in 1992, Batman Returns grossed $282.8 million worldwide, making it a financial success, though not to the extent of its predecessor.
Due to schedule constraints on Batman Returns, Burton produced, but did not direct, The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) for Disney, originally meant to be a children's book in rhyme. The film was directed by Henry Selick and written by Caroline Thompson, based on Burton's original story, world, and characters. The film received positive reviews for the stop motion animation, musical score, and original storyline. It was a modest box office success, grossing $50 million. Because of the nature of the film, it was not produced under Disney's name, but rather Disney-owned Touchstone Pictures. Disney wanted the protagonist to have eyes, but the final iteration did not. Over 100 people worked on this motion picture just to create the characters, and it took three years of work to produce the film. Burton collaborated with Selick again for James and the Giant Peach (1996), which Burton co-produced.
In 1996, Burton and Selick reunited for the musical fantasy James and the Giant Peach, based on the book by Roald Dahl. Burton, once again, served only as a producer due to his contributions to making Mars Attacks! (1996). The film, a combination of live action and stop motion footage, starred Richard Dreyfuss, Susan Sarandon, David Thewlis, Simon Callow and Jane Leeves among others, with Selick's animation direction. While a box office disappointment for Disney, the film was received well by critics for its story and visual aspects and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score (by Randy Newman).
In 2005, filmmaker Shane Acker released his short film 9, a story about a sentient rag doll living in a post-apocalyptic world who tries to stop machines from destroying the rest of his eight fellow rag dolls. The film won numerous awards and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. After seeing the short film, Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov, director of Wanted, showed interest in producing a feature-length adaptation of the film. Directed by Acker, the full-length film was produced by Burton, written by Acker (story) and Pamela Pettler (screenplay, co-writer of Corpse Bride), and featured the voice work of Elijah Wood, John C. Reilly, Jennifer Connelly, Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau, and Crispin Glover, among others.
Burton appeared at the 2009 Comic-Con in San Diego, California, to promote both 9 and Alice in Wonderland; the latter won two Academy Awards, for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design. In Burton's version of Alice in Wonderland, the story is set 13 years after the original Lewis Carroll tales. Mia Wasikowska was cast as Alice. The original start date for filming was May 2008. Torpoint and Plymouth were the locations used for filming from September 1 – October 14, and the film remains set in the Victorian era. During this time, filming took place in Antony House in Torpoint. 250 local extras were chosen in early August. Other production work took place in London. The film was originally to be released in 2009, but was pushed to March 5, 2010. The film starred Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter; Matt Lucas as both Tweedledee and Tweedledum; Helena Bonham Carter as the Red Queen; Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat; Anne Hathaway as the White Queen; Alan Rickman as Absolem the Caterpillar; Michael Sheen as McTwisp the White Rabbit; and Crispin Glover as the Knave of Hearts, with his face and voice added onto a CGI body. Despite receiving mixed reviews from critics, the film was a commercial success, grossing $1 billion worldwide, making it the highest-grossing film of Burton's career. Burton produced the film's sequel, Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016), which was directed by James Bobin.
In 2002, The Walt Disney Company began to consider producing a sequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas, but rather than using stop motion, Disney wanted to use computer animation. Burton convinced Disney to drop the idea. "I was always very protective of ['Nightmare'], not to do sequels or things of that kind," Burton explained. "You know, 'Jack visits Thanksgiving world' or other kinds of things, just because I felt the movie had a purity to it and the people that like it... Because it's a mass-market kind of thing, it was important to kind of keep that purity of it." Regardless, in 2009, Henry Selick stated that he could make a sequel to Nightmare if he and Burton could create a good story for it.
In 2012, Shane Acker confirmed that Burton would work with Valve to create his next animated feature film, Deep. Like 9, the film would take place in a post-apocalyptic world (although set in a different universe). Deep would be another darker animated film, as Shane Acker has expressed his interest in creating more PG-13 animated films. Since then, there have been no further mentions of Deep, with Acker focusing on another project announced in 2013 (Beasts of Burden).
Education
Burton attended Providencia Elementary School in Burbank and later went to Burbank High School. He then enrolled at the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) to study animation, though he dropped out before completing his degree. Despite this, his experiences at CalArts significantly influenced his early career and artistic style.
In conclusion, Tim Burton's net worth in 2025 reflects his enduring influence and success in the film industry, as well as his personal and artistic endeavors. His unique style and contributions to cinema continue to captivate audiences worldwide.
After graduating from Burbank High School in 1976, Burton attended the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Santa Clarita, to study character animation, until 1979. As a student at CalArts, Burton made the shorts Stalk of the Celery Monster and King and Octopus.
