The Weinstein Company, the producer of Tim Burton's "Big Eyes," a biographical drama about real life husband and wife artists Margaret and Walter Keane has just released the first set of promo stills for the movie which will begin showing in theaters by December 25, 2014.
The movie stars Amy Adams as Margaret and Christoph Waltz as Walter. Directed by Burton from a script written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, the film is "centered on the awakening of the painter Margaret Keane, her phenomenal success in the 1950s, and the subsequent legal difficulties she had with her husband, who claimed credit for her works in the 1960s."
Walter and Margaret became famous during the 1950-60 era for having pioneered the creation and production of art which are easily accessible to the ordinary masses. He and his wife made and sold paintings of children with unnaturally big eyes. Publicly, Walter claimed to be the real artist in the family. Eventually however, it was revealed that it was his wife Margaret who actually did the paintings.
When the couple divorced in 1965, Margaret tried to take ownership of her work after her husband called her crazy. The legal battle culminated in a courtroom "paint-off" in 1986. The judge put up two easels side by side and asked them to start painting. Walter begged off feigning a shoulder injury but Margaret proceeded painting off her familiar big-eyed art figure. As noted by Amy Adams, "This all seems so theatrical, like something you would design for a film. But that actually happened."
