Danny Elfman has provided the music for all but three of Tim Burton’s movies across their nearly 40-year-long partnership, with the composer’s absences highlighting the two artists’ peculiar relationship. Their first collaboration was on the 1985 film Pee-wee’s Big Adventure; Burton, a fan of Elfman as the frontman for the ‘80s new wave band Oingo Boingo, specifically asked him to write the score. In Elfman’s first film score and Burton’s first feature film, a decades-long partnership was born, with Elfman then providing the music for, and occasionally acting in, nearly every subsequent Tim Burton project, whether they be musicals, horror-comedies, or adaptations of DC superheroes.
Including the Netflix series Henry Selick-directed film The Nightmare Before Christmas, Danny Elfman has composed the music for 19 of Tim Burton’s 22 major projects. Burton and Elfman have established such an iconic relationship that it’s noticeable, and curious, when one of the director’s projects isn’t scored by the musician. However, it's impressive that this has only happened three times over the course of 40 years. Burton and Elfman falling out with one another explains one occasion in which the latter didn’t score the former’s film, with another missed collaboration being explained by the film’s musical origins, and the third being a mystery.
3 Ed Wood (1994)
After six consecutive collaborations over the course of a decade, the first Ed Wood. The composer who replaced Burton’s frequent collaborator was Howard Shore, who went on to win three Academy Awards for scoring The Lord of the Rings trilogy. As talented as Shore is, with his work on Ed Wood even winning him the Best Music award from the Saturn Awards and Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the lack of Elfman’s score felt odd for a Tim Burton movie.
However, Ed Wood arrived on the tail of Tim Burton's 1994 Johnny Depp-starring film because he and Burton had a falling out. Elfman explained that the intense period caused things to “come to a boil,” which culminated in an “inevitable explosion.” The musician implied that they didn’t speak to one another for some time, but that he felt bad about the situation a year later due to the familial-like relationship they shared.
After not working together on Ed Wood, Danny Elfman and Tim Burton made up, agreed to move forward, and have remained working partners ever since. Elfman revealed that the two had reconciled while Burton was filming his next movie Mars Attacks!, so their renewed friendship led Elfman to score the star-studded 1996 film.
2 Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (2007)
After Ed Wood, Elfman scored the next five Tim Burton movies until the 2007 Sweeney Todd’s original 1979 Broadway musical, Burton kept Sondheim’s score and songs, with no need for Elfman to rework the film’s music.
Burton and Elfman had already worked on a few musicals together, such as The Nightmare Before Christmas, Corpse Bride, and live-action Alice in Wonderland remake.
1 Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children (2016)
Substituting for Elfman, the music for the 2016 movie Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was provided by Mike Higham and Matthew Margeson. Higham had already worked in the music department for several of Tim Burton’s films, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Though there were clear reasons why Danny Elfman didn’t score Ed Wood and Sweeney Todd, the musician and director have yet to confirm why they didn’t collaborate on Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.
It doesn’t seem that there was any falling out, as it’s been speculated that Elfman didn’t write the music for Alice Through the Looking Glass, which Burton produced. Following the completion of his Alice Through the Looking Glass score, Elfman quickly embarked on an intensive project of writing a violin concerto (via LA Weekly), so he likely didn’t have time to work on Miss Peregrine’s music.
However, Elfman would be back for Burton’s next film, providing the score for his 2019 live-action adaptation of Wednesday has already been renewed by Netflix, it’s likely that both Danny Elfman and Tim Burton will return to collaborate on season 2.
