Actor Tim Allen talked about what it took for him to once again don the red coat for the new “Santa Clause” streaming show after saying that the third film “overshot the runway.”
The 69-year-old actor shared that he always wanted another chance to play the iconic character, noting that “The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause” missed the mark, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
“As I get older in my performance career, it’s all about words on paper,” Allen explained. “When streaming increased the demand for content, I knew it was coming, so I said, ‘Show me some words.’ It took a long time to get to that communication.”
“I thought we overshot the runway on number three, and I wanted to rein it in,” he added. “[I said], ‘If you have another story, let’s get together with some writers,’ and they ended up getting Jack Burditt, who penned ‘Last Man Standing.’ I know his mind, and he’s one of the most voracious writers I’ve ever been around. You can say, ‘I don’t like any of this or this,’ and the next day, it’s all different, and he goes that way.”
“He did the same thing on this and said, ‘What do you think of this?’ And I would say, ‘I don’t like any of it,’ and then it was gone or expanded, and I would come back and say, ‘This is amazing,’” Allen continued. “We were all able to answer the question of why Santa fell off the roof. It started there. Why was that the beginning of the movie? It allowed us to go back to the very beginning. What happened to that guy? It opened up a door that was wonderful, and it set the stage [for a series].”
When pressed by the interviewer on what happened with the sequel to “The Santa Clause 2,” the “Home Improvement” star said they “became infected by our own success.”
“[1994’s The Santa Clause] was huge, but we had about $11 for special effects,” the “Toy Story” star shared. “[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,” he added. “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.”
“I said, ‘Somehow we gotta explain that one away and bring it back down to magic. Let’s go back to the beginning,’ and Jack and his team — brilliantly, to me — added a couple scenes that really push for you people to see what’s going on about Christmas,” he added. “It’s a very simple, wonderful scene with all the other Santa Clauses.”
The Disney + series “The Santa Clauses” hits the streaming site on Nov. 16.
Disclosure: The Daily Wire has announced plans for kids’ entertainment content.
