Disney+ Finally Adds Iconic Johnny Depp Movie

Disney+ has finally picked up one of the movies fans have wanted there since it launched: Edward Scissorhands. The 1990 classic stars Johnny Depp as an artificial humanoid somewhere between Pinnochio and Frankenstein’s monster. You can stream the movie now on Disney+.

Edward Scissorhands was developed at Warner Bros. briefly before the film rights were sold to 20th Century Fox, where it was ultimately made and distributed. Back in 2019, Disney finally succeeded in purchasing the company, which currently goes by the name 20th Century Studios. However, Disney has been slow to find homes for all the Fox properties on its streaming service – particularly Disney+, which retains high standards for family friendliness that make Edward Scissorhands a hard sell.

The movie is rated PG-13 for instances of sexual tension, violence and gore, profanity, drinking and “frightening and intense scenes,” although the nostalgia factor makes many viewers forgiving. The movie is undeniably bizarre, but regarded by most fans as harmless. Thankfully, Disney seems to have settled on the same conclusion.

Depp plays the grown-up version of Edward Scissorhands, an “unfinished” artificial man with blades for fingers. Winona Ryder plays Kim Boggs, a teenage girl who learns that she is Edward’s neighbor. She helps coax him out of his solitary lifestyle and introduce him to the joys of community, but along the way he does face some trials.

According to Ken Hanke’s 1999 biography of filmmaker Tim Burton, Edward Scissorhands was one of the earliest movie ideas he held onto. Burton said that he came up with the character as a teenager, while he himself felt isolated and unable to communicate with neighbors in his suburban California neighborhood. He told Hanke: “I get the feeling people just got this urge to want to leave me alone for some reason, I don’t know exactly why.”

Burton hired writer Caroline Thompson to turn his idea into a screenplay, which they said was heavily influenced by monster movies like Frankenstein, Creature from the Black Lagoon and King Kong. They also took inspiration from The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, among other things. Fox gave Burton complete creative control of the film thanks to his successes up to that point.

The result is a beloved, eclectic mess of a movie unlike anything else out there. Edward Scissorhands is streaming now on Disney+.