Tim Burton talks about his dread of AI as exhibition opens in London

The touring “The World of Tim Burton” exhibition is opening at London’s Design Museum exhibition just in time for Halloween, and while the Oscar-nominated director has given audiences all kinds of gothic ghosts and ghastly ghouls over the years, there’s one thing that really scares him right now: Artificial intelligence. 

Burton said prior to the opening of the exhibition that he’s not a fan of “disturbing” AI. 

When seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters, Burton shared that it “really disturbed” him. 

“It wasn’t an intellectual thought – it was just an internal, visceral feeling,” the 66-year-old director told reporters during a preview of the exhibition. “I looked at those things and I thought, ‘Some of these are pretty good.’ (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside.”

Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because “once you can do it, people will do it.” But he scoffed when asked if he’d use the technology in this work.

Burton, who returned this year with the box office hit Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, the sequel to his 1988 cult film Beetlejuice, has always been an analogue artist.

“I wasn’t, early on, a very verbal person,” Burton said. “Drawing was a way of expressing myself.”

In our review of the Venice-premiering film, we stated: “From the extravagant art direction to the practical stop-motion effects that hark back to the original’s cartoony mentality, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice matches its predecessor’s anarchic vibe rather well.”

Burton’s films, including Edward Scissorhands, Batman, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Frankenweenie, all begin with drawing.  

The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton’s personal archive, and traces Burton’s ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.

Check out some of the items in the exhibition:

London is the exhibition’s final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been expanded with 90 new objects for its run in the British capital.

Tim Marlow, CEO of the Design Museum, said: “During his extraordinary career, Tim Burton has harnessed a compelling mixture of gothic horror and black comedy, of melancholy and enchantment, of oddball whimsy and visionary range in the creation of fantastical filmic worlds.”

High praise, but seeing it has not been a wholly fun experience for Burton, who said he’s not keen on looking too closely at the items on display.

“It’s like seeing your dirty laundry put on the walls,” he said. “It’s quite amazing. It’s a bit overwhelming.”

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“The World of Tim Burton” opens tomorrow and runs until 21 April 2025 at the Design Museum in London.