Santa Claus in film Another recent devious mall Santa was played by Billy Bob Thornton in "Bad Santa" (2003), a film which gained normally family-friendly Disney "bad press". Tim Burton's stop-action animated musical film, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993), depicts Jack Skellington, the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town, wanting to become Santa Claus after an accidental visit to Christmas Town. After the mostly well-meaning but clueless Halloween citizens capture Santa, they try to take over Christmas with disastrous results; the real Santa is almost killed by the Oogie Boogie Man. Santa is voiced here by Ed Ivory, and in the video game spin-offs, Corey
Tim Burton to direct. Burton came on and Warner Bros. set a theatrical release date for the summer of 1998, the 60th anniversary of the character's debut in "Action Comics". Nicolas Cage was signed on to play Superman, Burton hired Wesley Strick to rewrite Smith's script and the film entered pre-production in June 1997. For budgetary reasons, Warner Bros. ordered another rewrite from Dan Gilroy, delayed the film and ultimately put it on hold in April 1998. Burton then left to direct "Sleepy Hollow". Burton has depicted the experience as a difficult one, citing differences with producer Jon Peters and the studio,