You would be hard pressed to find someone who refers to The Nightmare Before Christmas by its official title, Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas. That’s like calling the Star Wars section of Disneyland and Disney World, which technically goes by Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, anything other than Star Wars Land.
Burton has a “story by” credit on Nightmare and he undeniably played a large role in shaping the film’s look, but the screenplay was written by Caroline Thompson and it was directed by Henry Selick. The stop-motion animation legend told the AV Club that it’s a “little unfair” that “it wasn’t called Tim Burton’s Nightmare until three weeks before the film came out.” Selick would have been fine with the possessive title if that’s what it was called all along, “but Tim was in L.A. making two features while I directed that film, and I mean, Tim is a genius — or he certainly was in his most creative years.” (Solid burn.)
He continued:
“I always thought his story was perfect, and he designed the main characters. But it was really me and my team of people who brought that to life. Now, of course, if you ask [Jack Skellington’s singing voice] Danny Elfman, well, that’s his movie [laughs].”
There’s no misattribution surrounding Selick’s new movie, Wendell and Wild: he directed it and co-wrote the script with Jordan Peele. It’s on Netflix… which is also the home of Burton’s Wednesday Addams series, Wednesday. Selick can’t escape him.
(Via the AV Club)