The Nightmare Before Christmas sequel rumors have been addressed by the actor who provided the speaking voice for lead character Jack Skellington, the character known as the Pumpkin King of Halloween Town who discovers the joys of Christmas and sets out to bring the holiday home with him by orchestrating the kidnapping of Santa Claus.
SCREENRANT VIDEO OF THE DAY On the newest episode of the podcast The Art of Kindness with Robert Peterpaul, Peterpaul sat down with Jack Skellington actor Chris Sarandon. During the conversation, they discussed the rumors that a sequel was in the works, which Sarandon shut down with as much authority as he could summon, considering the fact that even if the project was being developed he wouldn't be directly involved with that part of the process.
Essentially I have nothing to do with it. I can’t pick up the phone and call Tim Burton and say, "OK let’s go! Let’s do Nightmare Before Christmas 2!" I’m the hired gun in this equation. And whether it would be me in a sequel or not… I don’t know. At the same time I respect Tim’s thoughts. I mean this happened with The Princess Bride where there was a great demand for a sequel… I don’t know how Tim feels. I’ve heard various things, but they could be true or not.
There have also been many attempts to make sequels to the story in various non-film media, to varying degrees of success. Jack Skellington and the other Nightmare characters have made appearances in various video games including the 2002 Disney and Final Fantasy crossover game Kingdom Hearts and 2004's The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge. Most recently, Disney released the 2022 sequel novel Long Live the Pumpkin Queen.
However, if there were to be a sequel to The Nightmare Before Christmas, there might not be a better time to mount one than now. Both producer Tim Burton and director Henry Selick have experienced career comebacks on Netflix in the last few months, Selick with the stop-motion film Wendell & Wild and Burton with the popular Addams Family spinoff series Wednesday.