When Batman and Alice in Wonderland creator Tim Burton finally received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame last week, his Beetlejuice collaborator Winona Ryder said he carried a torch for “weirdos everywhere”.

“You made a weird girl, not just OK, but something to celebrate and even kind of cool … and you’ve carried that torch for us weirdos everywhere,” she said as he knelt to touch his gold star on September 4.

He’s carried the torch for Johnny Depp, with whom he’s made an incredible eight feature films.

He’s carried the torch for Helena Bonham Carter in seven films, and in five with Michael Keaton, Christopher Lee and Michael Gough.

Surrounded by his Beetlejuice Beetlejuice cast including Keaton, who were there for the original 36 years ago, Burton, 66, is not finished with weirdo, as he pivots to directing and executive producing season two of hugely popular Netflix series, Wednesday.

He’s got Jenna Ortega on set again to play the darkly brilliant Wednesday Addams from Nevermore Academy.

With the annual World Batman Day on September 21 – his first superhero movie was with Keaton in Batman in 1989 – and an Edward Scissorhands dance version of his Depp masterpiece in cinemas at the end of the month, is the former Disney animator  having a weird renaissance?

His eccentric, goth-loving style of movie making is reaching a milestone as he celebrates 20 films under his belt and box office receipts totalling more than $US4.5 billion.

He stumbled on a few productions but, according to IndieWire, he’s got his “mojo” back with the Beetlejuice sequel.

“Does this creative triumph signal a second wind for Burton’s career?” they asked.

Michael Keaton on the set of Tim Burton’s Batman in 1989. Photo: Getty

From Pee-Wee and Frankenweenie to Wonka

California-born Burton’s career took off after first full-length feature film, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure in 1985, and before long, he couldn’t say no to the Beetlejuice script when it arrived in 1988.

Warner Bros. then handed him a modern-day interpretation of  Batman, who first appeared in Detective Comics in 1939.

He said making the film in 1988 was a very different experience from the way most comic book films are made these days because the shoot felt “experimental”.

Burton walked away from the Batman movies after making his 1992 sequel starring Danny de Vito as Penguin and Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, admitting the tide was starting to turn while they were shooting the film.

“I got re-energised by the whole thing (when I returned for the sequel). And that was when we started hearing the word franchise and where the studio started going, ‘What’s the black stuff coming out of the Penguin’s mouth?’

“It was the first time the cold wind of that kind of thing came upon me.”

Johnny Depp on the set of Edward Scissorhands, written and directed by Tim Burton. Photo: Getty

Considered somewhat of a respected outsider in the billion-dollar entertainment industry, he turned back to the weird.

Telling Variety he loves casting the same talent, he went on to make eight critically acclaimed movies with Depp including Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Alice in Wonderland, Sweeney Todd, Corpse Bride, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

“I love working with people over again and showing different sides of themselves.”

At Burton’s Walk of Fame, Keaton, 72, recalled Burton taking a chance on him and casting him as the titular Batman superhero.

“He hands me a script and goes, ‘Tell me what you think’,” he said.

“This is after Beetlejuice. After that performance. After that type of movie. He says to the studio, ‘I want that guy’. I’ll never understand this why anyone cared.

“The uproar … you would’ve thought we were being invaded. It was unbelievable. The press was going crazy. But he stood by me. The guts it took to stand by that decision will always be appreciated by me.”

He said Burton should be credited for making superhero movies so lucrative.

“What that (movie) spawned … there are a lot of people making a lot of money out there with their superhero movies because of his choice and his vision of what those movies could be, because he changed everything.”

Jenna Ortega as Wednesday Addams with director Tim Burton. Photo: Netflix

‘The Burton magic’

Burton tells Total Film that he was done making movies until he directed the first four episodes of Wednesday.

And he says it directly inspired him to make Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.

“Wednesday reconnected me to why I like making things. It was like shooting a movie on a TV schedule. It was quick. It was invigorating.”

Do studios approach him these days wanting more of “that Burton magic”, asks Variety, which says he’s “just focusing on the things that I want to do and feel passionate about, and it’s a good place to be”.