Comic Con catch-up - Tim Burton's Frankenweenie gets a charming 1950s-style trailer.

There was a surprising lack of trailers leaked out of Comic Con, with several of the big guns (The Lone Ranger, Iron Man 3, etc.) being shown exclusively to the Comic Con audience (no, I'm not posting any alleged Man of Steel bootlegs, we all can wait until Friday).  But the best spot of what was released has to be this charming and amusing 1950s-style trailer for Tim Burton's Frankenweenie.  After two genuine disappointments in a row, Tim Burton arguably has to prove that it was just a blip on the radar and not some kind of a late-career rut.  As is, it's no secret that animation is where Burton puts most of his original ideas anyway, since nearly all of his live action films, even his best ones (Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Sweeney Todd, Batman Returns, etc.) are variations on someone else's work.  With the exceptions of Edward Scissorhands and Beetlejuice, all of Burton's live-action films have been adaptations of some kind, which makes this project somewhat of a conundrum.  Yes, it's a full-length animated remake of a 25-minute live-action short he directed back in 1984, but whatever ideas hes cribbing from were his own in the first place.  Odd.  As it is, the once novel idea of doing a somewhat scary animated film has long become accepted, with the successes of Monster House and Coraline as well as the upcoming ParaNorman.  On the plus side, it's the first Tim Burton project since Mars Attacks! way back in 1996 not to feature Johnny Depp and/or Helena Bonham Carter.  Anyway, Frankenweenie opens in 3D(!) on October 5th.  As always, we'll see.

Scott Mendelson