The Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick is humbly asking for a little bit of credit
The director admits that he's "won many a bar bet" with people who think Tim Burton directed the film in an exclusive A.V. Club interview
Aux News Henry Selick
We’ve reached that glorious time of year when we all come together to debate an essential cultural question: is Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas a Christmas movie or a Halloween movie? As unanswerable as this may be (why not just watch it twice?), director Henry Selick seems to think there’s a more pressing misconception surrounding his iconic animated film: who deserves credit for the thing in the first place?
While most would give kudos to Tim Burton (his name is in the title, after all), the director recently settled the score in an exclusive interview with The A.V. Club’s Todd Gilchrist.
“That was a little unfair because it wasn’t called Tim Burton’s Nightmare until three weeks before the film came out,” Selick revealed. “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.”
Selick is not the only creator hungry to claim credit for the film, it seems. “Now, of course, if you ask Danny Elfman, well, that’s his movie,” he continued. “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!”
It seems this is a perfectly friendly competition among artists who have a huge amount of respect for one another. This may have something to do with the fact that Selick “really, truly like[s] to collaborate,” most recently with Nope director Jordan Peele on Wendell & Wild, a stop-motion demonic romp loosely based on the talents of Peele and his longtime creative partner, Keegan-Michael Key.
Still, Selick wants to remind audiences that despite the big name, this new film is almost all him. “With Jordan, it’s 90 percent me and 10 percent him at the most,” he said. “These are my movies and other people have contributed.”
Wendell & Wild is now streaming on Netflix.
52 Comments
Tim Burton hired these guys to make his movie in a very time consuming style of animation, they totally deserve credit but at the and of things, the audience always gives credit to the director and main actor only. The industry knows who really made it happen.
Even on Marvel all the credit for everything first goes to the producer Kevin Feige then the actors then directors, etc, etc. and really involve thousands of people working.
Well, here they didn’t give credit to the director.
He is very credited and has gotten to make his own movies, his problem is that Tim Burton got all the credit in the view of the audience, but that happens with all animation, the people behind it aren’t considered important unless you are Industrial light & Magic or Weta. You know who directed the Little Mermaid or Pocahontas for Disney?
Please read the article again, but slower.
come on dude, can you connect more words and make a more interesting comment? imagine you are already 10 years old and can talk using big words, now formulate a new reply:
Me too! I’m a big Hollywood director too!
We know and you are terrible to work for. No matter how much we put into our work, there you are. Being disappointed with us
Still, Selick wants to remind audiences that despite the big name, this
new film is almost all him. “With Jordan, it’s 90 percent me and 10
percent him at the most,” he said. “These are my movies and other people
have contributed.”
Jeezuz this guy is the incarnation of Daffy Duck.But, he knows the trick to Hollywood is if enough people say something or someone is “_____________”, then they are _____________. Has nothing to do with actual value or likeability.
He’s not wrong. People are giving Jordan Peele credit for Candy Man too. People will give people they like credit for anything they’ve touched on a whim and people will give people they hate credit for anything they hate to protect the ones they like, too.
Old guy who once rolled in credits loses some to other guy getting credit – NEWS AT 11.
I, too, enjoy the simple pleasures of Daffy Dook!
Fuck off, dude. If I made a movie that became a beloved classic but like 99% of people think someone else did my job, I would be biting off my tongue every night. People who do good work deserve to be credited, and correct attribution is a genuinely important and moral thing to do in any endeavor. If you don’t see that you’re an asshole.
“If I made a movie that became a beloved classic but like 99% of people think someone else did my job, I would be biting off my tongue every night.”
Cool, you’re as completely pathetic as he is.
“If you don’t see that you’re an asshole.”
And if I don’t give you credit for calling me an asshole are you going to cry about it thirty years later?
Eat shit, loser.
“People who do good work deserve to be credited”
That’s why Henry Selick needs credit, and not the hundreds of people who actually made the movie?
Not at all.Often without malicious intent by creators, directors are overshadowed by folks who produced a film or the bigger name that helped contribute during pre.It comes from the marketingadvertising side of things and he isn’t the first person to feel justifiably slighted by it all.
Reminds me of back when Fantastic Mr. Fox came out, and there was a bit of pushback from the animation studio that made the film, because while Wes Anderson was credited as director, he apparently almost never visited the studio where the work was done, and his role was primarily recording the actor’s, and rubber stamping the character designs. The animators and studio felt it was more collaborative and they deserved greater credit.
Wes Anderson is a brand in himself. Not for audiences, who more often than not leave his movies as overwrought, critically-praised box office flops, but for studios who want to look like they have something to say. It’s not surprising that people are so casual about taking credit from other creators and giving it to him in order to justify investing in him further.
Wes Anderson was credited as director, he apparently almost never
visited the studio where the work was done, and his role was primarily
recording the actor’s, and rubber stamping the character designs. Correct.
Then if they effectively directed the film, why did they literally lift every one of Wes Anderson’s stylistic tropes? The movie is so Wes Anderson, that if he didn’t actually direct the day to day, it’s practically a parody. Damn right he’s not sticking around to watch people claymate. He wants the dailies, the editing room, a Rolling Stones song at the emotional height, and Bill Murray.
Wes Anderson was credited as director, he apparently almost never visited the studio where the work was done, and his role was primarily recording the actor’s, and rubber stamping the character designs.
Ho boy. Not only did he write the movie with Noah Baumbach, but if you can’t see that this is a meticulous Wes Anderson movie from start to finish I don’t know what to tell you. If anything, the “collaboration” was telling him what worked and didn’t worked with his storyboarding when translating it into stop motion – which of course he did. Having to be on set for technicians to move around the puppets isn’t really required for a director of a stop motion picture.
“Having to be on set for technicians to move around the puppets isn’t really required for a director of a stop motion picture.”
Stop correcting these people. They NEED to be right even though they know literally nothing about filmmaking in general and stop-motion animation specifically.
As someone who has worked on multiple stop motion tv shows and movies, the idea of animators as “technicians” and directors working remotely is absurd. Character animators are actors and a director needs to be present on set the same way they would be with live action actors.
The movie can be watched in November, between the two holidays.
Unless you are my youngest son, who can watch it every day if given the choice.Ironically his older teenage brother hates it and it creeps him out so much that he refuses to be in the room when its on.
I get it. Not necessarily the creeped out part, but my sister loved the movie and I got so sick of it, I’d leave the room when it was on. Of course, that was 20+ years ago so I’m fine with watching it now.
People need to accept that a movie can be two different things. In this case, it’s both a Halloween movie and a Christmas movie. Either way, it’s worth a rewatch at least once a year.
Still waiting on that sequel though
Oi, the Critic was a classic… and one of the best episodes of The Simpsons was the crossover!
The whole point of the movie is to examine the spirit of Christmas. Not even close.
People are dumb and think that a movie is a Halloween movie because it is set at Halloween, and a Christmas movie because it is set at Christmas.Halloween movies are about identity. Christmas is about bringing people back together. Nightmare is about both identity and bring people back together.
It’s an alright movie. Even as a kid when it first came out I wasn’t too into it. Then sometime around the early 2000s I noticed it came back and big.
Animators do a ton of work, recieve no appreciation or credit beyond their names in 6-pt font and paycheck that ends when the project does. This is how it’s been for decades… and then people complain about live-action adaptations and the poor quality of animated content, as if there were no relation between these things.
And?
That’s all well and good, but he’d better not steal my idea for a sequel in which Jack discovers Toyotathon Land. What’s this? What’s this?
A four door sedan car!
What’s this?
Zero percent APR!
What’s this?
I can’t believe these deals, I must be dreaming! Excludes hybrids? That’s not fair!
What’s this?
Maybe he will be now that Tim Burton disowned Disney.
I’d say viewing Coraline next to The Corpse Bride shows who the real talent was behind Nightmare.
I came here to say the same. Exactly.
I saw someone say the other day that Coraline was a character invented for the screen by Tim Burton, apparently forgetting that it was a Henry Selick movie based on a (wonderful) Neil Gaiman book.
When I was a kid, I knew like 3 people who owned it on VHS so I watched it a lot. But I still like it, particularly the songs.
“The Nightmare Before Christmas director Henry Selick is humbly asking for a little bit of credit”
Did you delete the part where he was being humble?
Selick gets credit around my house for that movie, at least. Each time I watch it and notice how artful and clever it is, I think, well, that’s sure not a Tim Burton movie.
Right on, he did a great job on Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas.
As an even more obnoxious teen, when this movie came out I would constantly correct people that Burton didn’t direct.
But it’s not too different from, say, the 1980s Amblin days when many people assumed every Amblin movie was directed by Spielberg. I remember teens in school going to see Wishmaster because they thought it was a Wes Craven film (and in that case, his Wes Craven presents credit I think he was even less involved than these other instances…)
Boo hoo… He got paid, received directing credit and got future work from that job. In my opinion, as part of his job he refined the visions of others but cannot claim majority credit.Those that create the scripts and create the characters should get majority credit because their visions and work pitching the concept created the opportunities for others to be employed. At the end of the day, it is the character designs and music that makes more profit in merchandise than a recollection of how Jack walks.All that took part in the creation of the movie should be acknowledged. But it all stems from a visionary that created the opportunity and their trust in those that they hired to fulfill their vision.