Director Tim Burton’s next film Big Eyes will portray the real lives of Margaret and Walter Keane. Amy Adams and Christoph Waltz will star as the married couple. The Weinstein Company plans to release the film on December 25, 2014 against four other films including Hot Tub Time Machine 2.
Walter became famous in the 1950s and ’60s for, supposedly, paintings of subjects shown with exaggerated eyes. It was later revealed that his wife Margaret was responsible for the paintings and the two subsequently divorced. Walter’s ruse was finally exposed when a judge asked both him and Margaret to demonstrate for the court. Walter declined citing an injury but Margaret agreed and proved she was the actual artist. Big Eyes was produced by Burton, Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski, and Lynette Howell, and written by Alexander and Karaszewski. The score was composed by longtime Burton collaborator Danny Elfman.
The Weinstein Company also announced the release dates for two more upcoming films: The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby, a romance led by Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy, releases on September 26; The Imitation Game, a biopic of British computer scientist Alan Turing played by Benedict Cumberbatch, releases on November 21.