In my house every year we watch ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ for both Halloween and Christmas (just like the true believers out there who will agree with me that ‘Die Hard’ is in fact a Christmas movie).
And to think that when ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ was first released Disney was worried it might scare little boys and girls, so even though they made the film they released it under their Touchstone Pictures movie company. Fast forward to today and Disney has had a change of heart not unlike the Pumpkin King himself. Now Disney has proudly embraced the movie, reissued it a couple of times, and incorporated the characters into their Haunted Mansion attraction at Disneyland in California.
Tim Burton’s ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas’ went on to make $101.2 million in total box office gross from its theatrical release, and it’s rumored that Disney has made over $1 billion dollars in merchandise sales since the release of the film.
There’s a funny story told by the film’s stop-motion director Henry Selick, that in the final scene of the movie he actually had included a puppet version of Tim Burton, but ultimately decided to cut that scene because he didn’t want to upset Tim Burton. Turns out it would have been hysterical, and Tim would have probably loved it!
Here’s the backstory:
“There’s a shot — and I really regret replacing it — at the very end of the film when Jack comes back and then Sandy Claws flies overhead and there’s snow and Christmas comes to Halloween Town. We show a lot of Halloween Towners enjoying winter sports and snow, and you see the vampires playing hockey and they hit the puck right at the camera — and originally it was Tim Burton’s head,” says Selick. “And it was really funny. And Denise Di Novi or one of the Hollywood producers told me, ‘I don’t think Tim’s going to like that.’ And I feel so stupid for not just asking him. But that’s one of the shots that we reshot and we put in a pumpkin instead. I don’t know if that shot still exists, but I’d love to replace the one in there and I’m sure Tim would love it.”
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