10 Films That Embellished Who Actually Made Them

Who You Probably Thought Made It: Tim Burton

Who Really Made It: Henry Selick

Sixteen years after the release of The Nightmare Before Christmas, Henry Selick directed the dark fantasy stop-motion animation Coraline based on the novel of the same name by British writer Neil Gaiman.

Yet thanks to some rather enigmatically worded marketing that promoted the film as ‘from the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas’ many people wrongly assumed that Coraline was a Tim Burton film too when in fact he had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

It’s unknown whether playing on the common misconception that Burton directed The Nightmare Before Christmas was a deliberate attempt on behalf of Coraline’s marketing team to give it more exposure, but it certainly led to Coraline’s wrongful association with Burton regardless.

It was enough to get Neil Gaiman’s hackles up. After noticing several big-name media outlets refer to it as ‘Tim Burton’s Coraline’ he took to his blog and Twitter to remind everyone that Selick was the talent behind the film.

Not that it helped all that much, of course, since many still think of Coraline as a Tim Burton rip-off today. Poor Henry Selick.