Venice honours Burton, presents 3-D "Nightmare"

VENICE, Sept 5 (Reuters) US director Tim Burton, the king of macabre fairy tales like ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'', ''Corpse Bride'' and ''Edward Scissorhands'', was honoured with a career award at the Venice film festival today.

Organisers of the festival, whose 64th edition runs until September 8, called Burton ''one of America's bravest, most visionary and innovative film-makers.'' ''The city it's like cinema itself, it's very very special to me and so therefore it means a lot to me,'' Burton, sporting his trademark dark glasses and frizzy hair, told a news conference ahead of the award ceremony later in the evening.

''And it's actually a lot more beautiful looking thing than a bald, naked man,'' he added, referring to the Oscar statuette that he has never won. He has been nominated once.

Burton mixes critical acclaim, for titles such as the ghoulish animation film ''Corpse Bride'', with box office hits that make him a major Hollywood player.

'''Corpse Bride' was received the way you would want any film to be received and that's just not based on business, not based on box office but just a pure response,'' he said, recalling the film premiere in Venice in 2005.

That same year he also made ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'', which starred frequent collaborator Johnny Depp and grossed 5 million worldwide.

His ''Batman'', made 16 years earlier, earned 1 million in global ticket sales, according to movie tracking Web site www.boxofficemojo.com.

Toay it was observed as''Tim Burton's Day'' on the Lido, with the world premiere of the 3-D version of his 1993 film ''The Nightmare before Christmas'', a ghoulish animated musical set in Halloweentown.

SWEENEY TODD There was also a screening of some sequences from his next project, ''Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'', an adaptation of the hit Stephen Sondheim musical again starring Depp as the eponymous barber who seeks deadly revenge for his wrongful imprisonment.

That movie also stars Helena Bonham Carter, Burton's partner with whom he has also worked on several movies. The couple have one child together and are expecting a second.

Burton's dark but often funny films have been described as fairy tales for adults although his offbeat creatures are also very popular with children.

''You are always worried that it's too scary for children and it's happened to me with almost every film where I have thought it's too much for children and a few years later it's actually quite tame by standards,'' he said.

Asked what kind of books and stories triggered his imagination as a child, he said: ''Just in terms of fairy-tales, I didn't really read any, in the sense that monster movies and films were sort of fairy tales for me.'' REUTERS PDT VC2125