Disney Is Reportedly Considering A Live-Action 'The Nightmare Before Christmas' Movie

What's this? Apparently, The Nightmare Before Christmas fans can expect another trip to Halloween Town in the near future, except it may not look like how we all remember it. There may actually be a live-action version of The Nightmare Before Christmas coming from Disney soon, so I guess now we all have to start imagining what Jack Skellington and Oogie Boogie might look like as live-action characters.

So far, this news is still just a rumor, but film site Moviehole is claiming that the rumor comes from a reputable source close to Disney. According to the source, Disney is looking to “do something with Nightmare Before Christmas — probably a sequel but live-action possible.”

That rumor presents two possible directions for this potential Nightmare Before Christmas follow-up. It sounds like a sequel may be the plan right now, but the idea of a live-action adaptation being in the mix might throw fans for a loop. Part of the magic of Nightmare Before Christmas is its unique stop-motion style of animation. The 1993 movie is arguably the most beloved and well-known movie to employ stop-motion animation, and one of the first big-screen ventures to embrace the style. Nightmare's success went on to launch a string of successful stop-motion animation movies from Tim Burton and Henry Selick, including James and the Giant Peach, Corpse Bride, Coraline, and Frankenweenie.

But then again, the possibility of Disney turning an animated classic into a new live-action film should not really come as a shock. Disney has been in the business of turning its animated films into live-action movies for the past decade, beginning with Alice in Wonderland in 2010 and Maleficent in 2014.

The number of those adaptations exploded over the last few years, with Disney now preparing to release four live-action adaptations over the course of 2019 (Dumbo, Aladdin, The Lion King, and Lady and the Tramp) and even more adaptations planned for the future (including Mulan, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Little Mermaid). With all these adaptations flooding from Disney, it is reasonable to assume that the studio would also be looking at a cult-favorite animated hit like The Nightmare Before Christmas as another potential adaptation.

For his part, Tim Burton has spoken about how he has not been interested in making any sort of sequel or spin-off movies from The Nightmare Before Christmas in the past. When the movie was being reissued in 2006, Burton explained to MTV that he did not feel it was the right type of movie for a sequel:

I was always very protective of [Nightmare], not to do sequels or things of that kind. You know, "Jack visits Thanksgiving World" or other kinds of things, just because I felt the movie had a purity to it and the people that like it. Because it's not a mass-market kind of thing, it was important to kind of keep that purity of it. I try to respect people and keep the purity of the project as much as possible.

We will just have to wait to see if anything comes from this new rumor. If so, then prepare for your nightmares to come to life in the near future.