Tim Allen Reveals That ‘The Santa Clause’ Almost Had A Much Darker Plot
The Santa Clause was released all the way back in 1994, but we’ve just learned that the plot of the beginning of the movie could have been very different. On Wednesday night, Tim Allen appeared on The Tonight Show and he talked about a major change to the plot of the movie. The original version of the film would have been much darker, as reported by E! Online.
“The original Santa Clause is a little darker, written by two comedians. I actually shot and killed Santa, in the original movie,” Allen said to Jimmy Fallon. “And he fell off the roof, because I thought he was a burglar. He gives me the card and the whole movie starts. And the kid goes, ‘You just killed Santa.’ And I said, ‘He shouldn’t have been on the roof when he wasn’t invited.'”
Anyone who’s seen the final cut of the movie knows that it doesn’t go down like this. Sure, Santa still dies, but Scott Calvin, Tim Allen’s character, accidentally frightens him, causing him to fall off the roof.
On why it changed, Allen said, “The head of Disney at the time, [Jeffrey Katzenberg], said, ‘Well, we can’t start a movie like that.’ I said, ‘Why not?’ He said, ‘Well, we can’t start a Disney movie with you murdering Santa Claus.'”
Allen responded, “Why not? That’s funny. You killed all the parents in your other movies anyway. Don’t they?”
Interesting, Tim Allen joked about how he’s the last person who should have played that part because he doesn’t “like kids that much. I’m not going to hurt ’em. I don’t say inappropriate stuff. I just don’t like them.”
Allen talked about showing The Santa Claus to his young daughter. He says he told her that “we did have permission from the real Santa to go to the North Pole and take pictures.” He also told her not to tell her friends at school that her dad is Santa because he’s an actor playing the character.
Almost on Fallon pic.twitter.com/bKTt2gBzR6
— Tim Allen (@ofctimallen) November 21, 2018
The Santa Clause was quite successful. It gave way to two sequels and generated an impressive $189.8 million at the box office. It didn’t do quite as well with the critics, though, as the film has a 57/100 on review aggregate site Metacritic. However, on Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a much more respectable 74 percent, which is quite solid.
The film is available to rent and purchase from a wide range of platforms including Apple, Google Play, Amazon, and popular streaming services. It’s also available on Blu-Ray and DVD.
