One of our favorite movies of all time, is Edward Scissorhands – a 1990 American romantic dark fantasy film directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp and Winona Rider.
Synopsis
Edward Scissorhands is a modern-day fairy tale about Edward, a man who was created by an ancient inventor who died before completing him, leaving him with scissors instead of hands. Edward gets picked up by a suburban family and develops feelings for their teenage daughter Kim. He must adjust to a new life and surroundings that he is unfamiliar with. He quickly demonstrates his ability to trim dog and human hair, as well as hedges. Edward wins every body’s heart, or does he?
Edward’s crowning achievement is creating ice for the girl he loves, resulting in a snowstorm in which she dances. Despite their separation, Edward manufactures snow for her every year, as you learn at the end of the film.
15 interesting facts that you probably didn’t know about Edward Scissorhands
1. In the movie, at one point, when Edward sits in a car in the yard, there are children playing. This is a boy running (portrayed by Nick Carter,) who in the future become a party to Backstreet Boys.
2. All residents of the town Tampa, Florida were relocated to the hotel for the filming, and the residences were painted in four distinct colors.
3. Throughout the entire film, Johnny Depp only spoke 169 words.
4. The initial draft of the script was written in the style of a musical.
5. The ‘death scene’ was to be Vincent Price’s final appearance on screen. He passed away on October 25, 1993.
6. Burton initially approached Robert Smith of The Cure considering composing for Edward Scissorhands, but Smith declined because he was too preoccupied with his band’s next release, Disintegration.
7. Each day, Edwards’ make-up took about an hour and 45 minutes to apply. (Image courtesy of http://blog.truffleshuffle.co.uk) In the shot, a young Ve Neill is seen applying Johnny’s make-up.
8. Following the popularity of this picture, Depp and Tim Burton collaborated on six more projects, including Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Corpse Bride, Sweeney Todd, and Alice In Wonderland!
9. “When I first started drawing the characters, they were more sharp instruments, and the emotional thrust of it was a character who couldn’t touch, a character who had emotions, who wanted to feel things, but, because of the sharpness of his fingers, couldn’t actually touch somebody.”
Burton goes on to note they weren’t scissors in the initial drawings, just sharp items. He mentioned using things from your own environment for how he came up with scissors.
10. The scars on the face of Johnny Depp in the film are different in different scenes at different locations and vary in length and depth.
11. The mansion was built on a Fox set. Burton was happy they got to build it themselves, the way they wanted so “it could feel really real and like they were actually there.” He called it “Martha Stewart’s house when she’s old and crazy.”
12. Burton collaborated with Winona Ryder for the second time (the first being Beetlejuice). He thought it’d be interesting to see her “playing a more regular, suburban character”.
13. The scene in which several women neighbors feed Edward giant spoons of their concoctions is one of two that made Johnny Depp get sick. He had to do about twenty takes of that scene, after which he vomited. The second time was after Depp had to run from the police (at full speed). After the sixth run, Johnny never came back; he was in the bushes, throwing up.
14. The visuals of all the neighbors fleeing (particularly near the end of the film) were intended to evoke the outraged townspeople in Frankenstein for Burton. He chose not to have them carry torches.
15. Edward’s outfit, according to director Tim Burton, was constructed of latex, leather, and an old sofa, among other things.
Spinoffs / sequel
2014:
Edward Scissorhands was the premise of a series of comic books published by IDW Comics in 2014. The all-new adventure, which follows Edward Scissorhands two decades after the end of the fan-favorite film, debuted at NYCC with a convention-exclusive cover by Gabriel Rodriquez!
The long-awaited all-new adventures kicked off in October, with New York Times best-selling author Kate Leth (Adventure Time) handling the writing and Drew Rausch (Haunted Mansion) providing the interior art. Gabriel Rodriguez, the famed Locke & Key illustrator, will round out the creative team with a magnificent and appropriately scary cover for the first issue.
2015:
In May 2015, a combined effort of the comic books was released by Amazon.com, written by Kate Leth, released in May 2015 in the United States. Edward Scissorhands Volume 1: Parts Unknown Paperback – May 19, 2015
Herewith an excerpt from an interview with Kate Leth as found on www.comicbookresources.com
Kate Leth: My book picks up with the granddaughter that Kim’s talking to at the end of the movie. It’s moved forward in time a little bit so she’s older and in her teens now. At this point, the legend of Edward Scissorhands has become more of a myth. Everything that’s happened has become obscured. So she’s grown up and some interesting, weird things start happening in town that causes her to reconnect with Edward, who’s been living secretly up in the castle on the hill.
Is Kim in the book then? No, she has passed away at this point. We’ve got an almost entirely new cast. A whole new set of people. Her granddaughter and her daughter. It’s a new story, just set in the same universe.
And Edward’s just been sitting in the attic all these decades twiddling his scissors? Yeah, he’s been hiding. He’s gone into seclusion after everything that’s happened and somehow become even less socially capable. Sort of the way he was before the movie started. He got exposed to the world in a harsh and very quick way in the movie and after everything he sort of reverts into himself. The way you would in a traumatic situation. He has very fond memories of Kim, obviously, and he holds on to that. He’s kept track of the world, he reads the newspaper, but other than that he’s faded into obscurity.
How did you get involved with “Edward Scissorhands?” The way anybody gets involved with these things — I got an e-mail from Chris Ryall at IDW last year asking what I knew about “Edward Scissorhands.” They had wanted to work with me, I had done a few little things for them so we talked back and forth. I pitched them a few ideas that were very, very lengthy and involved. It sat for a while in development hell, as these things do, then one day I got a note that things were coming together and moving forward.
