Skellington Productions renamed the studio to Selick Projects. In September 1992, Tim Burton returned to Selick's studio, renamed it Skellington Productions, and sold it to Disney. The first film produced by Skellington Productions (which gave the company its namesake), "The Nightmare Before Christmas", was released theatrically in 1993 under Disney's Touchstone Pictures banner to a positive reception and a successful box office, becoming a sleeper hit. Since 2006, "Nightmare" has been released by Walt Disney Pictures and in Disney Digital 3-D format. The second and final film, "James and the Giant Peach", released to theaters in 1996. It was met with positive
Tim Burton Elfman and Burton reunited for "Mars Attacks!" (1996). Based on a popular science fiction trading card series, the film was a hybrid of 1950s science fiction and 1970s all-star disaster films. Coincidence made it an inadvertent spoof of the blockbuster "Independence Day", which had been released five months earlier. The film boasted an all-star cast, including Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Danny DeVito, Pierce Brosnan, Michael J. Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker, Natalie Portman, Lukas Haas, Martin Short, Rod Steiger, Christina Applegate and Jack Black. After Kevin Smith had been hired to write a new "Superman" film, he suggested Burton