Edward Scissorhands is a cult classic that cemented Tim Burton’s style as a director and the beginning of his long collaboration with actor Johnny Depp. The director worked with screenwriter Caroline Thompson on an idea of a man who had scissors for hands, and it might have turned out quite differently because, apparently, Burton had originally planned for it to be a musical. He ultimately decided against it, but the movie was later adapted for the stage while he went on to work on other movie musicals.
Thompson and Burton were both represented by the same agency and were encouraged to meet in order to discuss possible collaborations. They were both seen as artists who shared strange ideas about the world. When Burton spoke of a drawing he’d made in high school of a character who had scissors for hands, Thompson immediately imagined a story out of it and wrote a 70-page treatment. However, Burton was thinking about making a different film than the one that became a classic.
Why Tim Burton Originally Envisioned Edward Scissorhands as a Musical
Tim Burton’s vision and style presented audiences with particularly unique characters, some more bizarre than others, but to this day, Burton has never been seen as a typical musical director. His former partner Helena Bonham Carter once hinted that he even disliked musicals. The director himself had said that people singing on screen conveys a campy feeling, which he’s not fond of. Yet, the genre often approached fantastical elements, and Burton believed that audiences might be more likely to accept his out-of-the-box vision if Edward Scissorhands were made as a musical. Thompson’s treatment for the film included musical interludes and lyrics, and she even mentioned one of the songs being called “I Can’t Handle It.”
However, Burton had further thoughts on it and ultimately decided not to do it. At the time, he had just been responsible for the huge success of Batman, and making a name for himself could lead to the success of his more personal projects. Edward Scissorhands ended up having a particular journey in that regard. It opened in 1990 to very poor box-office figures and was considered a disappointment, but it later evolved into a gothic cult classic that would come to define Burton’s career. Not to mention it was the very first project that united the director with Johnny Depp and their long collaboration of work, although Tom Cruise was initially attached to star.
Edward Scissorhands Paved the Way for Other Musical Projects
The musical version of Edward Scissorhands probably would’ve not saved it from that year’s strong competition from Home Alone and Look Who’s Talking Too. But its status as a movie classic did eventually inspire other artists and found its way to the stage, as it got adapted into a theatrical ballet, a play and more recently, a jukebox musical at a dinner theater. Meanwhile, Burton found other ways to tell stories through music. Turning to animation, he produced the famed The Nightmare Before Christmas just a few years later and Corpse Bride. Nightmare Before Christmas is still a beloved animation with iconic songs remembered every Halloween.
And although Burton refrained from directing musicals for long, he also entertained the idea of adapting Sweeney Todd from its stage musical into a film for over a decade. It finally happened in 2007, marking his sixth project with Johnny Depp, who played the title role of the vengeful barber. 17 years after Edward Scissorhands, Burton finally got to direct a musical that was right up his alley. The stage musical Sweeney Todd opened on Broadway in 1979 and featured music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The composer was also not fond of the genre in film, as he believed adaptations from stage musicals usually failed to reconcile the medium with the original material.
Sondheim disliked the film adaptations of his work. However, marking Burton’s talent as a director, especially one who’s not famous for directing musicals, Sondheim defended Burton’s Sweeney Todd as an exception. By not committing to making Edward Scissorhands a musical, Burton actually saved his best capabilities in the genre to suit Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and receive the composer’s praise.
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