There are some classics in the stop-motion claymation world like Corpse Bride, Frankenweenie, Coraline and possibly the most famous, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. It might shock you to learn that only two of these films were made by the legendary strange stop-motion director Tim Burton, and it’s only the first two.
What?! The Nightmare Before Christmas wasn’t directed by Tim Burton?! Nope. He wrote the story, co-produced the film, and came up with the character designs, but he was not the head of the team that really brought the movie to life. But then why is it called Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas? And who did direct it?
RELATED: Batman Continues: The Troubled Story of Tim Burton’s Third Batman Film
Tim Burton is Aware That the Movie Is Not His
It was discovered in an interview in 2012 with IGN that the reason Disney chose to rename the movie was that they were afraid that its core audience would hate the film and not come to the viewing. In order to distance themselves, they chose to rename the film, adding the well-known Burton’s name to draw in a wider audience and attract his fans to the release.
Burton shared on Burton on Burton that it turned into more of a brand-name thing and it was something that he wasn’t sure about. Burton is well aware that he didn’t make the movie, and in fact didn’t have time to “handle the painstakingly slow process of stop-motion” and actually passed the opportunity to do Nightmare onto Selick, who brought the iconic film to life.
Burton went on to direct two stop-motion features, Corpse Bride and Frankenweenie in the time that it took for Selick to complete Nightmare, and Selick went on to make other stop-motion features like Coraline and Netflix’s latest feature Wendell & Wild.
“I mean, Coraline is based on a really good book by Neil Gaiman. That didn’t hurt. On [Wendell & Wild], my collaborator is Jordan Peele – and that is the reason we were able to set this up. So I really, truly like to collaborate. But I’m the one leading the team to make the movie.”
RELATED: Can We Get An Animated Sequel To Tim Burton’s Batman Returns?
Henry Selick is the Real Director of The Nightmare Before Christmas
Henry Selick is getting tired of the misconception, and wouldn’t you? He chatted to AV Club about the misconception and how he feels it’s a bit unfair that Burton gets all the credit, “That was a little unfair because it wasn’t called ‘Tim Burton’s Nightmare’ until three weeks before the film came out. And I would have been fine with that, it that’s what I signed up for.”
Selick, however, doesn’t discredit the work that Burton put into the film. “I mean, Tim is a genius-or he certainly was in his most creative years. I always thought his story was perfect, and he designed the main characters,” Selick said. “But it was really me and my team of people who brought that to life.”
It seems Selick still looks on the situation with a bit of humour though, as he has joked that if you ask Danny Elfman who gets credit for the movie’s success, Elfman would say it’s his movie. “When we finished the film, it was so funny because he came up to me and shook my hand. ‘Henry, you’ve done a wonderful job illustrating my songs!’ And he was serious, and I loved it! Fine,” Selick said. “But my thing was I’m going to hang in there long enough to where people actually say, ‘Oh, that guy Henry, he does stuff.’”
I think it’s perfectly normal for an artist to want credit for their work, especially with something as widely successful as The Nightmare Before Christmas.
RELATED: The Cast Reveal Secrets From The Making of Tim Burton’s Batman