Coming soon to a theater near you? Okay, so maybe not quite yet.
 
But the Indian media is buzzing with rumors day-dreams of the award-winning filmmaker —  most famous for his use of magic realism to create dark-but-amazingly-beautiful cult classics — re-telling one of India’s beloved tales, and the Ramayana seems the best fit. 

The idea stems from a blog post by Indian film director Shekhar Kapur, who was on the jury of the Cannes film festival (which Burton headed up this year). Kapur blogged his appreciation for Burton and his enthusiasm to see Burton work in India and on Indian themes:

Tim Burton is a
compassionate and gentle person that is so eager to learn about other
people and cultures. He is also completely fascinated by India, so I
have invited him to come and see if there is something he would like to
shoot in India. India is a country that accepts mythology and magic realism as an
essential part of it’s culture, as does Tim Burton in is film making.
It would be fascinating to see Tim Burton’s visual take on some of our
tradition folk tales.

(read the whole post here)

Kapur also tweeted his desire: “Tim Burton loves India and am trying to convince him to make film here!”

Tim Burton’s take on traditional Hindu narratives? The possibilities are endless!  Oompa-loompa-esque monkey armies. Ravana’s ten serpentine heads bursting out of the screen in 3-D. Danny Elfman and A.R. Rahman collaborating on a score. And, of course, Johnny Depp as Lord Rama.

Hey, while we’re at it– how about a live-action/animated hybrid with Kapur & Burton teaming up with PIXAR (a la Sanjay Patel’s Ramayana: Divine Loophole)?

Now, that’s worth some serious day-dreaming about.