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Because Disney released THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS as TIM BURTON’S THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, moviegoers still think Burton directed it.

The 1993 stop motion animated musical fantasy actually marked Henry Selick’s feature directing debut — but Burton conceived it and was a producer. For more than 30 years, controversy’s bubbled over whose film it really is. While Selick was on set much more than Burton, Burton’s claimed ownership of the story because his poem spawned the screenplay. He also mostly wrote the screenplay, created the characters and produced the movie (with Denise DiNovi).

So why didn’t Burton direct? He wanted to, but was way too busy to take it on. At the time, Burton was directing BATMAN RETURNS for Warner Bros. and was in pre-production on ED WOOD for Disney’s adult label, Touchstone Pictures.

NIGHTMARE’s origins were in a 1982 three-page poem Burton wrote while working as a Disney animator. What caught his attention was seeing a retail display of Halloween merchandise being replaced by Christmas goods. In Burton’s mind, that was a mashup of goblins & ghouls with Santa & Reindeer.

Burton turned his poem into a screenplay, but Disney thought it would be  too scary for family audiences. Burton moved on — and scored blockbuster success at WB with his 1989 BATMAN. When he then tried to buy back his poem and story ideas from Disney, they suddenly wanted to work with him. Disney gave Burton an $18M budget plus creative control to develop NIGHTMARE. When the cost rose to $24M, Disney reportedly was unhappy with Burton. After the picture opened wide Oct. 29, 1993 and did $106.8M worldwide, Disney had to be happier.

When Burton would have had to be directing NIGHTMARE, he was locked in at WB to direct the 1992 sequel BATMAN RETURNS. He knew Selick from working with him at Disney and invited him to direct NIGHTMARE.

To turn his poem into a screenplay, Burton brought in Michael McDowell, who’d co-written Burton’s 1988 WB hit BEETLEJUICE. When Burton & McDowell had creative differences, Burton re-imagined NIGHTMARE as a musical and turned to A-List movie music composer/ lyricist Danny Elfman. Burton & Elfman had also teamed up on BATMAN RETURNS, EDWARD SCISSORHANDS & BATMAN.

Disney planned on releasing NIGHTMARE as a Walt Disney Pictures title, but moved it to Touchstone after a research screening for school children found it was confusing to them. Although a Disney logo teaser trailer for NIGHTMARE was already playing in theatres, then-CEO/Chairman Michael Eisner ruled the movie was “too dark for kids” and sent it to Touchstone.

That’s when Disney renamed it TIM BURTON’S THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS, springboarding off Burton’s post-BATMAN brand name value with young adults, who turned out to see it — and weren’t at all confused.