What's this? The Nightmare Before Christmas came out in 1993 as a Halloween or Christmas classic, whichever holiday you prefer. (The correct answer is Halloween. Fight me.) There was recently chatter about a possible sequel or even live-action version of the Tim Burton classic. Fans responded with a resounding hell no, and CinemaBlend had its own take on why a sequel is a terrible idea. You know who disagrees? Jack Skellington.
Chris Sarandon voiced Jack in The Nightmare Before Christmas, although Danny Elfman did Jack's singing. Here's what Sarandon said about returning for a Nightmare Before Christmas sequel:
I'd crawl on my hands and knees, from the East Coast to the West Coast, in the spring or the fall, to do it again. Of course I would. I love that character and I love that I'm part of a legacy of that character as well.
Wow! Not only is he a fan of the idea of a sequel, he told ComicBook.com he'd crawl coast-to-coast to be a part of it. Huh. He loves the character and that's why he wants to return. Many fans also love the character and the original movie and that's why they were initially against a return. But we don't even know what the sequel idea would be.
However, we know know what Tim Burton has said in the past about doing another Nightmare Before Christmas. Here's what he told MTV News in 2006:
I was always very protective of [Nightmare], not to do sequels or things of that kind. You know, 'Jack visits Thanksgiving world' or other kinds of things, just because I felt the movie had a purity to it and the people that like it. Because it's not a mass-market kind of thing, it was important to kind of keep that purity of it. I try to respect people and keep the purity of the project as much as possible.
Tim Burton made those "purity" comments while he was revisiting the movie for a holiday release in 3-D. His feelings may have changed. He came up with and produced The Nightmare Before Christmas but it was directed by Henry Selick and Caroline Thompson has screenplay credit. Disney seems to have the rights, but I can't see anyone moving forward with a sequel without Tim Burton's blessing.
Nothing official has been said about a Nightmare Before Christmas sequel, and there have been rumors about one before. But Chris Sarandon is clearly down to return to voice Jack. Sarandon is an Oscar nominee for Dog Day Afternoon -- and he's how Susan Sarandon got her last name since she kept it when they split -- but he's probably still best known to fans as Prince Humperdinck in The Princess Bride. That's another movie to come up in recent conversation, this time for remake rumors.
Chris Sarandon told ComicBook he didn't understand why anyone would need to remake either Princess Bride or Nightmare Before Christmas because they are so iconic and have such cultural imprints. However, he was clearly OK with a sequel to Nightmare, which is a different beast altogether.
What do you think? Has Chris Sarandon's enthusiasm changed your mind at all about a Nightmare Before Christmas sequel, or do you still feel however you felt when you first heard the rumors?
