Movie Info
Movie Name: The Santa Clause
Studio: Outlaw Productions
Genre(s): Comedy/Family/Seasonal
Release Date(s): November 11, 1994
MPAA Rating: PG
Does this mean I get more gifts or less gifts?
Scott Calvin (Tim Allen) is getting ready for the holidays. He works at a toy manufacturer and is trying to juggle life with his son Charlie (Eric Lloyd), his ex-wife Laura (Wendy Crewson), and her new husband Dr. Neil Miller (Judge Reinhold). When Scott accidentally kills Santa Claus, he falls under the Santa clause. Now he’s becoming Santa, and the people around him wonder if he’s going crazy or if there could be any truth in the belief.
Directed by John Pasquin, The Santa Clause was a family holiday movie. The film was met with relatively strong reviews from critics and the box-office take far exceeded the production costs.
Do you seduce all the Santa Clauses with hot chocolate?
The Santa Clause became a huge holiday hit. The movie had been in production hell for a while, and Tim Allen wasn’t the original plan for Santa Claus. Bill Murray was the first candidate and who the film was originally written for and Chevy Chase was also planned for Scott Calvin. Tim Allen was hot on Home Improvement and permitted to work at Disney despite a criminal past (something that Disney usually doesn’t allow).
The movie is set on a premise that is somewhat disturbing. First a person is “damned” to become Santa Clause by some strange law and second, the only way a person could fall into the “Santa Clause” is for Santa to die. There is no choice…Santa isn’t elected or picked. You are forced to be Santa. There is no concessions for a man’s family or life…one bad slip by Santa and you’re damned to go around the world and live at the North Pole until you die. This makes Charlie Calvin’s comment that he hopes to “go into the family business” a bit scary…is he going to kill his father?
I have to be careful…someone’s always trying to knock me off to gain the power of Claus
The movie has some special effects that haven’t held up but Allen’s “Santa Claus” transformation is pretty effective. Santa Claus is suppose to look old, and Allen manages to look pretty old for a guy who was probably just around forty at the time of the film. I’ve never been a real big Tim Allen fan, but for the role, he works.
The movie is kind of a dumb movie with over-the-top story and an uneven plot. Some of the North Pole stuff was kind of clever, but that is easy humor (and it was done even better later with Elf). Since it was such a big movie, it was obvious that a sequel would follow The Santa Clause 2 (Sometimes referred to as The Santa Clause 2: The Mrs. Clause) came in 2002 and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause in 2006.
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