Tim Burton is leaving the fantastical behind for his next movie, and doing something slightly different but potentially just as interesting. He’s already added Christoph Waltz, Amy Adams, Danny Huston, Krysten Ritter and Jason Schwartzman to the cast of Big Eyes, and now Terence Stamp has signed up too, according to THR.
Adams is set to play artist Margaret Keane, whose paintings of large-eyed children were massively popular in the 1950s and 1960s. Christoph Waltz is playing her husband Walter, who initially claimed he was behind the paintings. However, Margaret later claimed she was the true artist behind all the big-eyed paintings, and that the rather pompous and self-obsessed Walter (who spoke about himself in the third person and compared himself to Rembrandt and El Greco) stole all the credit for her work. It set off a long running dispute between the two which ended in court battles, and a rather dramatic moment in court where the judge asked both to do some painting. Walter refused to do so because of a pain in his arm, but Margaret quickly crafted one of her trademark paintings.
Terence Stamp will portray New York Times art critic John Canaday, who despises Walter and his rise to prominence. Tim Burton is directing from a screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who previously wrote Ed Wood for the director, along with notable biopics such as The People vs. Larry Flynt and Man on the Moon.