Tim Burton is probably the only household name director in America besides Steven Spielberg, and is at the height of his commercial powers after making two of the biggest blockbusters of all time with his spins on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland. He’s also light years away from the exciting, iconoclastic genius who turned out classic after classic in the late 80′s and early 90′s like Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice and Ed Wood. As soon as he got the clout to make whatever he wanted, Burton turned his attention almost exclusively to phoning in his uninspired riffing on his favorite stories, from Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman to Planet of the Apes. Whenever he breaks out of the box — as with the uncompromising musical Sweeney Todd or the lovely Southern fairy tale Big Fish — he reminds us why we fell in love with him in the first place. Sadly, he’s continuing his and our time with his next project:

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Burton wants to make a retelling of PINOCCHIO with Warner Brothers (not at Disney, interestingly enough), and Robert Downey Jr. would play Gepetto, the lovable inventor who wants a son so badly that he makes a puppet that comes to life.  This new tale would be from the perspective of Gepetto and his adventures trying to find his lost wooden marionette.

Expect lots of cartoonish goth imagery and Danny Elfman-scored “la la la”-ing. Yawn.