In less than one week, Disney and Christmas fans will once again see Tim Allen don the red suit and become jolly old Saint Nicholas. It has been 16 years since we last saw Allen in the role of Scott Calvin, AKA Santa Claus, but it feels like just yesterday. The Santa Clause was released in 1994 and fans loved it so much that Disney released The Santa Clause 2 in 2002 and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause in 2006.
After years of waiting and years of fans asking, Disney finally created a series based on the films. The Santa Clauses will premiere on Disney+ on November 16.
Allen recently sat down with The Hollywood Reporter and talked about his long career in Hollywood and how he wanted The Santa Clauses to bring back the magic of the first Santa Clause movie. Allen was also asked about the third film, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, and said that it was an example of what a movie with too much money and not enough story looks like.
What happened was that we became infected by our own success. [1994’s The Santa Clause] was huge, but we had about $11 for special effects. [2002’s The Santa Clause 2] was an extension of that but now we could put lights in the window because we had more production money. By number three, all we had was money. The story kind of just got bigger and bigger. And the fact that Marty Short and I never did a scene together that was funny, I’m still going huh. That’s the funniest human being I’ve ever been around, other than me, and we never got a shot to do a real big scene together.
Allen also acknowledges that there is still a big interest in The Santa Clause and thinks that audiences will really like the new series. He worked closely with the writing team and was honest with them when he didn’t like what was written. The writers then returned and took more shots until everyone loved the final product.
I know there’s interest on [The Santa Clauses] because it’s good, and the reason it’s good is because we worked our ass off to make this funny and wonderful for the audience. That’s the only reason we did it.
The Santa Clauses will have a two-episode premiere on November 16 and, in addition to Allen, Elizabeth Mitchell will return to her role as Carol Calvin, AKA Mrs. Claus. David Krumholtz will return as Bernard and Eric Lloyd will be back in the role of Charlie — Tim Allen’s son. Elizabeth Allen-Dick will play Scott’s youngest daughter Sandra and, in fact, is Allen’s real-life daughter. Austin Kane will play Buddy, Scott and Carol’s oldest son, Kal Penn will be video game designer Simon Choski, and Rupali Redd will be Simon’s daughter.
