Tim Burton & Johnny Depp's 'Sleepy Hollow' Becomes a Streaming Hit 26 Years Later Actorsvaultpro

Tim Burton and Johnny Depp have collaborated on a lot of projects over the years, and while some have found greater success than others, one of their best team-ups has found new life on streaming even though it wasn’t necessarily a box office sensation. Released in 1999, it was the third pairing for the star and the director following their word together on Edward Scissorhands and Ed Wood, and was nominated for three Academy Awards – winning one for Best Art Direction.

We’re talking, of course, about Sleepy Hollow, which hit theaters a little over a month before the turn of the century (doesn’t that make you feel old?) The Gothic supernatural horror mystery was Burton’s take on the classic Washington Irving story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which was first published in 1820 and centered around a superstitious school teacher from Connecticut who comes to the small village in New York’s Hudson Valley, and ends up competing with Brom Bones for the love of Katrina Van Tassel.

Burton obviously took great liberties with Irving’s original tale, making Depp’s character of Ichabod Crane a New York City constable sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate a string of murders. He also made the Headless Horseman a supernatural force that’s very real, which was in stark contrast to the original, which made him an ambiguous figure that could have been a ghost, or maybe just a prank by Bron to get Crane out of the picture so he could have Van Tassel all to himself. Burton also added a witchcraft element to his story that wasn’t present in the 1820 classic, which worked to add intrigue and mystery to the overall plot of the movie.

‘Sleepy Hollow’ Was a Throwback to Classic British Horror Cinema

Paramount Pictures

For horror fans who have been around a while and dabbled in watching movies produced outside North America, you’ll know that Hammer Productions was at one time one of the most revered companies in the world thanks to their many Gothic tales. The British entity produced some of the best horror movies of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, including The Curse of Frankenstein, Horror of Dracula, and Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter.

It’s clear that Burton was heavily influenced by the past when it came time to make Sleepy Hollow, and the director even admitted as such in a 1999 interview with Premiere. He also spoke about why Depp was the perfect choice to play Ichabod Crane, adding that his talents aren’t something that you can “manufacture”:

“We really wanted to evoke the spirit of the old Hammer horror films, Vincent Price movies, Roger Corman’s work. The heroes in those films are always kind of separate, ambiguous, absorbed in their work. They’re there, but you don’t know much about them. And Johnny is perfect for that; he radiates like a silent-movie actor. He hardly has to say anything. It’s something you can’t manufacture.”

“I always thought of Ichabod as a very delicate, fragile person who was maybe a little too in touch with his feminine side, like a frightened little girl,” added Depp in an interview with Entertainment Weekly that same year. That explains his acting choices for Sleepy Hollow, and why Crane comes across as a meek mouse at times who can’t easily distinguish his own shadow from a ghost.

While Sleepy Hollow may not have been a box office smash compared to the likes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Alice in Wonderland, it still holds a special place in our hearts and will always be, for us, one of the best collaborations between Depp and Burton. You can catch it streaming now for free on Pluto TV, where it’s managed to rise to the #7 position on their list of Top 10 movies.