CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Corpse Bride

2005 stop-motion-animated dark fantasy film by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ164417
Source-derived summary

Corpse Bride is a 2005 American stop-motion animated romantic fantasy film directed by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton and written by John August, Caroline Thompson, and Pamela Pettler. Set in an English village, Corpse Bride stars Johnny Depp as the voice of Victor, while Helena Bonham Carter voices Emily, the title character. An international co-production between the United States and United Kingdom, produced by Tim Burton Productions and Laika Entertainment, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures, Corpse Bride is the first stop-motion feature film directed by Burton after previously producing The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) and James and the Giant Peach (1996).

Corpse Bride drew inspiration from "The Finger", a 17th-century Jewish folktale put down by Howard Schwartz, which Joe Ranft introduced to Burton while they were finishing The Nightmare Before Christmas. Work on the film started in November 2003 while Burton was wrapping up his previous live action feature Big Fish. His next live-action tenure, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, was produced simultaneously with Corpse Bride. Production of the stop-motion animation feature took place at 3 Mills Studios in London. It was shot with Canon EOS-1D Mark II digital SLRs, rather than the 35 mm film cameras used for The Nightmare Before Christmas. Burton immediately brought regular collaborators Depp, Bonham Carter and Danny Elfman aboard.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Corpse Bride” as 2005 stop-motion-animated dark fantasy film by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2005, 1993, 1996, 2003—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—2005-01-01, 2005-11-03, 2005-09-23, 2005-10-13—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. The account is most persuasive where Corpse, Bride and stop-motion-animated can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as 2005 stop-motion-animated dark fantasy film by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q164417. 5 of 7 selected statements include explicit references; 6 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2005, 1993, 1996 and 2003.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Corpse Bride”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Corpse Bride primary sources, Corpse Bride archive and Corpse research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Corpse Bride”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Corpse Bride” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.