Whether it’s Elf or Frozen, James King looks into what makes the best Christmas movies
WANT to amaze friends and family this holiday? Simple.
When you’re all sitting down to watch a festive movie, rocking reindeer onesies and necking mulled wine, tell them the following: It’s A Wonderful Life – perhaps the warmest, cosiest and best-loved Yuletide film of them all – flopped when it first came out in December 1946.
In fact, the fairy tale starring James Stewart was such a box-office disappointment that when another festive flick – Miracle on 34th Street – came out the following year, studio bosses demanded its poster barely feature the story’s most important character, a certain Mr Claus.
To make extra sure it wouldn’t be labelled a Christmas film, Miracle was even released in the distinctly unseasonal month of May.
Thankfully, things have changed.
Seventy years later, both films are now as much a part of the big day as puddings, presents and laughing at East 17’s Stay Another Day video.
What’s more, no studio is embarrassed by its festive movies these days – with hopes high for this month’s Office Christmas Party, Almost Christmas and Bad Santa 2.
Nevertheless, today’s film-makers can still learn plenty from the ups and downs It’s A Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street experienced on their way to legendary status.
You see, creating a classic doesn’t just happen overnight.
You have to play the long game.
Like sherry and mince pies, movies and Christmas are a perfect match.
With 2 billion people around the globe celebrating the big day every year, it provides the kind of ready-made audience that has Hollywood execs crying into their wallets with glee.
But like festive pop songs, Christmas films only have a limited window to impress – basically December.
So to really judge their appeal we have to show a little patience.
Forget all those early ticket sales and reviews, the big question is: do we keep watching them year after year?
To become as much a part of the Christmas furniture as Macaulay or The Muppets, a film actually needs to earn the right.
Naturally, all of this takes time, but when it works, it really works.
When Elf was released in 2003, it was a big hit, but what turned it into a phenomenon was when the original audience (of kids) kept watching it again and again, hitting adulthood and realising that this wasn’t just a bit of fun.
It was a slice of festivity that was making them nostalgic for the innocence of those childhood Christmases when they first watched it.
You know what it’s like, one glimpse of Buddy’s yellow tights and suddenly you’re six years old again.
Meanwhile, every December, new kids are being introduced to the joy of zingers such as: “You smell like beef and cheese” – meaning Elf will be around for a long time.
It doesn’t always work, of course.
2007’s Fred Claus was Vince Vaughn’s attempt to copy his mate Will Ferrell’s success with Elf, and for a few weeks he almost did.
The tale of Santa’s slobby brother taking over the family gig took nearly £80million at the box office, but its popularity was brief.
Fred Claus has since been banished to the bargain basement bins.
So while it’s true that the Noughties saw a resurgence in Christmas films, it was all too easy to spot which ones had real heart and which, like Fred Claus, were just doing it for the fast buck (I’m talking about you, Four Christmases, Christmas With The Kranks and Deck The Halls).
A turkey remains a turkey however long you leave it in the oven, but truly magical stories are like fine wine, posh cheese and Fairytale of New York – they just get better with age.
And it really is about magic.
The best-loved movies ask us to believe in the impossible, letting us happily retreat back to childhood again and buy into the innocent and optimistic.
Frankly, it can be a relief to escape the real world for a couple of hours.
Of course, not every classic conforms to that blueprint.
Die Hard uses festive partying as a backdrop for a brutal tower heist, while Gremlins sends up the feel-good spirit of It’s A Wonderful Life by letting mischievous monsters run riot through the snowy streets of sleepy small-town America.
It’s a good job, too.
If every new Christmas film was just more identikit wholesomeness, we’d quickly get bored.
The best ones, though, manage to combine a bit of everything.
1993’s The Nightmare Before Christmas was genuinely heart-warming yet still stunningly different – the perfect mix.
It was also hugely successful, but only over time – a very long time.
Nightmare was actually first penned by Tim Burton back when he was still an animator at Disney in the early 1980s.
Disney held on to the idea, and its interest only reignited when Burton became a major director with hit movies such as Beetlejuice and Batman.
Nightmare then morphed from short film to TV special before Burton hired regular musical sidekick Danny Elfman to write songs and turn it into a full-length movie musical.
Even then, director Henry Selick faced three long years of filming using fiddly stop-motion animation.
Finally, after over a decade of hard work from idea to release, Disney decided that The Nightmare Before Christmas was just too dark for its squeaky-clean brand and released it via a different company instead.
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The movie was a modest hit, but it was on video (remember that?) and through re-releases where it really built up the audience it deserved.
It’s now so well-loved, it’s become a festive feature at Disney’s theme parks, but boy did it fight to get there!
What can we expect to see in the future?
Recent Christmases have seen cinemas more full of jedis and hobbits than angels and elves, so predicting the next festive favourite is a struggle.
Will we still be watching Bad Santa’s cheeky spin on the genre in 20 years’ time?
How about other recent holiday hits such as Nativity! and Arthur Christmas?
The only one I’d put money on surviving is also the biggest – Frozen.
It’s wintry and wonderful enough to feel festive, even if it’s not specifically about Christmas, and has already got a nation of five year olds hooked– a recipe for sure-fire longevity.
So be prepared, Britain. Come Christmas 2036 we’ll all still be singing along to Let It Go.