Ed Wood is a TV show.
Ed Wood . ( October 10 , 1924 -- December 10 , 1978 ) was an American filmmaker , actor , writer , producer , and director . In the 1960s and 1970s , he made sexploitation movies and wrote over 80 pulp crime , horror and sex novels . Ed Wood is a 1994 American biographical period comedy-drama film directed and produced by Tim Burton , and starring Johnny Depp as cult filmmaker Ed Wood . The film concerns the period in Wood 's life when he made his best-known films as well as his relationship with actor Bela Lugosi , played by Martin Landau . The film was released to critical acclaim , but was a box office bomb , making only $ 5.9 million against an $ 18 million budget .