Tim Allen's Massive Disney Franchise Was Turned Down By Bill Murray

It cannot be understated just how successful John Pasquin's 1994 Christmas comedy "The Santa Clause" was. Made for a middle-sized budget of $22 million, the film raked in an unexpected $190.5 million at the box office. Adjusted for inflation, that's over $400 million. Although a lighthearted, Disney-produced family movie, "The Santa Clause" had something of a dark premise. Tim Allen played Scott Calvin, a divorced dad who was looking after his young son on Christmas Eve. He then happened to catch Santa Claus (the real one) on his roof and startled the old elf, causing him to fall to his death. Calvin, following the instructions on a business card on Santa's person, puts on St. Nick's coat and magically — and against his will — finishes Santa's Christmas chores.

Over the course of the next year, Calvin — in an almost David Cronenberg-ian way — begins to slowly mutate into Santa Claus. Because he essentially killed Santa, he has to take on the job. He stays fat, and his white beard grows back as soon as he shaves it. Children are magnetically drawn to him. Of course, the movie doesn't unfold in a horrific, Cronenbergian fashion. It's only a PG-rated comedy, even with a controversial phone number joke that was cut on home media.

"The Santa Clause" was so successful that it spawned two film sequels and a TV series. However, had the movie's creatives cast Bill Murray instead of Allen as Scott Calvin like they originally wanted, it might've well been darker. Some years back, while giving an interview on the "Grunt Work" podcast, Pasquin explained that Murray "had no interest in pursuing another holiday-themed project" after his bad experience working on Richard Donner's 1988 Christmas comedy "Scrooged."

Murray, it seems, really, really didn't like working on "Scrooged." Speaking to Entertainment Weekly in 1993, he revealed that Donner kept pushing for his scenes to be louder, a direction that Murray hated taking. He added that Donner also insisted on using his worst takes and expressed frustration over their conflicting views on what "Scrooged" should be. In a 1989 issue of Starlog Magazine, Murray similarly noted that one of his co-stars, Carol Kane, was a little rough with him during a fight scene, and he ripped his lip slightly. Overall, "Scrooged" was a bad time for the actor, and it seems that he was put off making Christmas movies for a while.

"Scrooged," by the way, is a modern retelling of "A Christmas Carol," with Murray playing a modernized Ebenezer Scrooge.

On top of that, Murray was only just finishing filming 1993's "Groundhog Day" when he was approached to star in "The Santa Clause." He didn't have a good time working on that comedy either, having frequently butted heads with director Harold Ramis over the movie's tone, damaging their friendship in the process. Murray would throw tantrums on set and was generally mean and cantankerous. Meanwhile, his marriage to Margaret Kelly was struggling, and he was in the early stages of a divorce. Hence, the last thing he wanted to do was to make another Christmas flick. Instead, he decided to star in Tim Burton's biopic "Ed Wood."

Allen, apparently, was relatively lower on the list of potential leads for "The Santa Clause." He only came aboard after big names like Tom Hanks and Mel Gibson either passed on the project or dropped out of consideration, along with Murray. Everything worked out, though.