Tim Burton came up with the original idea sometime in the eqarly 80's.This was when he wrote a poem about Jack Skellington, a forlorn skeleton and the king of Halloween. The poem told of how Jack and his friends created their own Christmas - and messed everything up in the process. He brought them idea to his then employers at Disney, who didn't really want to deal with the concept. As a result, it was locked away in the Disney vaults.
Years later when he had become a successful director, Tim decided to create the film himself. After some business deals with Disney, he was able to start create the film under the wing of Touchstone, a Disney side company. Tim hired Henry Selick to direct the film, since he was working on 'Batman Forever' at the time. A crew was brought in to put the difficult stop motion together, and the troupe called themselves Skellington Productions.
They started work in 1991, situated in San Fransico, California. Tim frequently visited between the 'Batman Forever' set and the Nightmare set, and was pleased with the production of the movie.
The film involved the creation of some major plot revisions and characters not in the original poem; Oogie Boogie, Sally, Lock, Shock, and Barrel to be specific. Tim however created concept drawings for them all, and everything was done according to his image. Music was supplied by Danny Elfman, Tim's main collabrator, who also was an executive producer and voiced numerous characters. The script was done by Caroline Thompson (who had previously worked with Burton on Edward Scissorhands); the poem was adapted by Michael McDowell, of Beetlejuice fame.
The movie was officially titled 'Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas', mainly as an attraction. It drew in a modest 53 million dollars - and an extensive cult following. To date the film still has many fans, and it gains more every year.
