When The Nightmare Before Christmas dropped in 1993, the film found itself marketed as a Tim Burton project, despite the fact that filmmaker Henry Selick was the one who ultimately directed the stop motion animated favourite.
Now, almost three decades on, Selick wants to clear up any misconceptions about The Nightmare Before Christmas, with the director telling AV Club:
“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 if that’s what I signed up for, 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. 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.”
Burton worked on the story, co-produced the film, and came up with character designs, but Selick was there for the day-to-day grind of making this holiday cult classic. With production taking years, it’s evident that the Coraline director wants his fair share of recognition.
With musician Danny Elfman also heavily involved in the production, Selick jokes that he even stakes some claim to Nightmare. “Now. 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. 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.'”
SEE ALSO: Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Battle for Pumpkin King launching in March
Henry Selick is currently promoting Wendell & Wild, a new stop-motion film he worked on with one of the stars, Jordan Peele. Keegan-Michael Key and Peele lend their voices to the film, and you can check out our review for Wendell & Wild here.
