<Tr> <Th> Budget </Th> <Td> $18 million </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Box office </Th> <Td> $76.2 million </Td> </Tr> <P> The Nightmare Before Christmas (also known as Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas) is a 1993 American stop - motion animated musical dark fantasy film directed by Henry Selick, and produced and conceived by Tim Burton . It tells the story of Jack Skellington, the King of "Halloween Town" who stumbles through a portal to "Christmas Town" and decides to celebrate the holiday, with some dastardly and comical consequences . Danny Elfman wrote the songs and score, and provided the singing voice of Jack . The principal voice cast also includes Chris Sarandon, Catherine O'Hara, William Hickey, Ken Page, Paul Reubens, and Glenn Shadix . </P> <P> The Nightmare Before Christmas originated in a poem written by Tim Burton in 1982, while he was working as an animator at Walt Disney Feature Animation . With the success of Vincent in the same year, Burton began to consider developing The Nightmare Before Christmas as either a short film or 30 - minute television special to no avail . Over the years, Burton's thoughts regularly returned to the project, and in 1990, he made a development deal with Walt Disney Studios . Production started in July 1991 in San Francisco; Disney released the film through Touchstone Pictures because the studio believed the film would be "too dark and scary for kids". </P>

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