Michael Keaton opens up on ‘working with’ Tim Burton, ‘we work pretty well together’

Michael Keaton gushed about how well he and Tim Burton get along working together, but despite the bond, the actor’s not happy with “one movie” he let down Tim Burton on.

Amid the high anticipation of Keaton and Burton’s Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the Batman star revealed how he “sucked” in the movie and it “bugs” him to “this day”.

“I love working with Tim so much, but I don’t think we ever really analyzed why we work pretty well together; we just do,” Keaton told The New York Times in an interview, and Burton was also there.

He added, “I think I let him down on one movie, but that’s just me, and it bugs me to this day. I was clueless on Dumbo. I sucked in Dumbo.”

But Burton chimed in, saying, “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. But whatever.”

The collaboration between Keaton and Burton began with the 1988 release of the first Beetlejuice movie. For the sequel Batman Returns (1992) and the first 1989 film Batman, the pair reunited.

The filmmaker and actor didn’t collaborate again until Dumbo, when Burton tapped Keaton as the villainous V.A. Vandevere, the owner of an amusement park who takes unjust advantage of Dumbo.

After Dumbo came out, Burton said that the movie would probably be his last one for Disney.

“My history is that I started out there. I was hired and fired like several times throughout my career there,” Burton shared in 2022.

“The thing about Dumbo, is that’s why I think my days with Disney are done, I realised that I was Dumbo, that I was working in this horrible big circus and I needed to escape. That movie is quite autobiographical at a certain level.”