The Nightmare Before Christmas 2 (Skellington Night)

Skellington Night is an upcoming stopmotion halloween film. It is the theatrical sequel to Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. The movie was announced in 2018 with the comic book about Zero but the release date has not been confirmed. Chris Sarandon and Catherine O'Hara will return as the voices of Jack and Sally. William Hickey and Ed Ivory will be replaced by Jess Harnell and Frank Welker as Dr. Finkelstein (though he will only have a minor role) and Santa.

While Walt Disney Pictures currently releases the first movie under it's banner, Touchstone Pictures will return for co distribution. It was also announced they would use the original "Snake" logo used in the first film.

Imagemovers and Castle Rock entertainment will also be in production.

The film will be dedicated in memory of William Hickey, who had died in 1997, 21 years earlier.

Plot
1 year after the events of The Nightmare Before Christmas with Oogie Boogie being defeated and Santa returning to his day job, Jack has still enjoyed being Santa. However, he has always been wishing to try again, but he already came to the decision he would never do a thing like that again.

19 Days being left until The Real World Halloween, Jack is once again getting bored of the same routine, but this time he would rather not announce it, due to what happened.

He takes a walk and notices a woman who looks similar to Sally lying down on a table near a newcomers house. There was a small nearly invisible thread loose on her neck which Jack patched up in a flash, just by pulling it. Her eyes open and she mistakes Jack as her love. The owner, Phil, comes back to find out his creation, Ella, was alive, delighted, but gets infuriated once she follows Jack around. They do meet, but Ella's head falls off and Phil has to re attach it.

Jack takes a little walk and stumbles back upon the trees with Holiday Symbols on them, and enters the one with the Christmas Tree and goes to see Santa. Santa is still a little bit upset with Jack, as he demands a good reasoning why he is there and he barks at him that he better not be doing anything Christmas Related. Jack, believing that Santa is still mad at him, is very hurt by this, so he leaves Christmas Town and returns to Halloween Town.

He heads to into a Graveyard with Zero, and bitterly expells his emotions, where in the meantime Ella was repaired and actually met Sally, who finds Jack in the Graveyard and he explains what happened. Ella, secretly being on the same level as Oogie Boogie Psychopathic, suggests to him he kills Santa, but he refuses. Then she suggests he has his own Holiday to show Santa a piece of his mind, and Jack happily agrees. Sally is not on the same level with him.

Jack starts by trying to figure out what he wants to call the holiday, beginning with "Merry Skellington" which he thinks is lazy. The others consist of "The Skeleton Pride" "Jack's Holiday" and finally "Skellington Night".

Sally gets a chance to talk with Santa and he says that he is still mad at Jack. Sally insists that what "Jack wants for Christmas is self happiness" which Santa insists he tries to be a Mall Santa in the real world, which Santa meets up with Jack and insists the idea.

Despite ruining Christmas, and it being November, Jack agrees and gets into the familiar Santa Suit from the original and goes into the real world. However, people do not respond well to Jack. Kids flee from him, and he only got 3 Kids to sit on his lap. After that, Policemen came and demanded he "removed his costume" to which he took off his head, which they shot at him after that.

Jack got away and as he returns home, he has lost his joy. He had failed to bring it. Therefore, he had became extremely bummed out and sad. He remembers that he was doing his own Holiday, but he doesn't know who will want to help. Ella agrees to it, and after Jack states he wants to do it his way, but can't figure anything out, he pulls off his head and throws it on the ground, damaging his memory. Ella convinces a woozy Jack that he is evil, and will not let the world criticize him for who he is.

Jack gets motivated, and decides that Skellington Night will be the night of terror. Lock, Shock and Barrel find out and then find the pieces of Oogie Boogie in his former lair, the burlap part of him, and use him to help Jack increase a sadistic side.

Jack invites the Halloween Townspeople to Illinois, in a medium town called Rockchell. Jack remembers Oogie Boogie as Evil, like he was, but he goes along with his twisted manor.

On Skellington Night, Jack goes around Scaring People, Oogie sadistically scares the crap out of kids. But the other Halloweentownspeople just scare for the fun of it.

Sally finds out why Jack is being so sinister and she finds him and trys to talk him out of some of the things he is doing, to which he rejects, and she insists he throws his head to scare a nearby kid. He does this and he hits it face first into a brick wall, and Sally picks up his head and puts it back on his body.

Jack realizes what he has done, and he remembers Oogie Boogie being alive, and comes to his senses to realize that he is going to possibly hurt the kids. So, Jack works with Sally to find Oogie and they find The Acid Tunnel which him and Oogie made. Ella also trails along. In this tunnel, kids are experiencing some of the most terrifying stuff ever, and Jack eventually does, but in the world gets Oogie and pulls him back apart, with his Bugs flying everywhere. Jack rescues the captured Children. At that moment, Santa had stopped by to see Jack, as insisted by Sally. Santa gives Jack a present which is a box of Candy, and he gives the candy to kids he rescued and other kids who were traumatised. After that, he offers candy to some adults who were equally as angry about Oogie, while people liker Jack's kindness, one individual attempted to open fire at Jack, which results in him sadly tossing the rest of the candy in the sidewalk.

Ella is infuriated by Jack being rejected, so she goes into the owners house and kills him.

While Jack heads back to Halloween town to be alone, Sally tries to Convince Santa he needs to do something for Jack and Ella does the same.

Despite not being Christmas just yet, Santa decides he'll go find Jack. He does and offers him a Job on Christmas: To Help Him serve as a secondary Santa Claus, because he could use the help only if he does it right. Jack isn't sure, because he doesn't want to ruin Christmas. Santa insists he'll give him his chance to celebrate Skellington Night on Christmas, and with Santa's help this time. Jack agrees to it.

In the meantime, Phil is revealed to be Mr. Carnage, a shapeshifting Demon. Being a Demon, he doesn't exactly praise Joy and Happiness, and he plots "Total Carnage" this year. Meaning a lot of people are gonna die.

A month passes and it is Christmas Eve, Jack is still unsure of himself, even though he agreed to the job. Mr. Carnage plots to kidnap Santa and kill him off. Therefore, he can kill people.

Ella had been analyzing what Jack did the year before and decides to try it herself, doning a similar costume as Jack's Santa Suit.

She convinces Mr. Carnage she's putting bombs in gift boxes and giving them to kids, which he praises her with, but she isn't actually doing that. Instead, she's doing exactly what Jack did, and fails pretty hard at doing so like Jack did.

Santa is delivering the presents while Jack is handing out Candy to kids, who are getting up to see Santa.

Meanwhile, some of the things Jack used last year begin appearing, Santa questions it and Jack denies bringing any of it. Then, a Body falls out of the chimney, that being Ella, who's had been knocked out from the fall. As Santa transports back up the chimney, Mr. Carnage kidnaps him, to which Jack takes Santa's bag of presents and finishes the job, and taking back the Halloween gifts and replaces them with Santa's gifts.

In the meantime, Mr. Carnage had hung Santa in a cave, to which Jack, carrying Ella, finds him, and Mr. Carnage rests his plan to resurrect Ella.

Santa continues Christmas, but not long before Mr. Carnage captures him again before he can complete delivering presents in The U.S.

Mr. Carnage hatches a plan to kill Santa in Oogie's former lair, only this time by hanging him.

The Mayor reports to Jack he hears noises in the former lair of Oogie, so he goes to invesigate. He finds Santa being hung over a fire, to which Jack saves him, Mr. Carnage cuts his head off with an Axe, but Jack picks it up and puts it back on.

Jack nearly gets killed by Mr. Carnage but Ella appears and assists him. Betrayed, he used Oogie's weapons to kill her, but fails, only shredding her attire a bit, but nothing much. Sally then appears and Jack asks what to do to this man. She takes his head off and throws it at Mr. Carnage, knocking him over to the point he falls into a nearby pit, filled with Sharp points, and gets impaled and dies.

Santa is rescued, and he gripes about how Christmas is becoming much more harder than it needs to be. He gets out and gets back to delivering presents and completes doing so.

1 year later, on Halloween Night, Jack and the Halloweentownspeople go to the real world to celebrate Skellington Night in Los Angeles, with Jack handing out Candy to kids, as well as scaring the trick-or-treaters and plenty of scary things to add to that night on Halloween.

In the meantime, Ella kisses Jack and then Sally does. They both cling onto his legs as he levitates in the exact same way as he does at the end of This Is Halloween.

A post credits scene has Jack boasting about how great Skellington Night is and he can't wait until next Halloween, in the form of the song Skellington Night 2.

Trivia
Like the first movie which borrowed Elements from How The Grinch Stole Christmas!, this film borrows some elements from the 1977 Short Halloween is Grinch Night, appropriately renamed Grinch Night after it occurred to the producer it had nothing to do with Halloween. Skellington Night is a reference to Jack being somewhat influenced by The Grinch, the title character in the aforementioned short. Oogie's Acid Tunnel is a throwback to The Grinch's Paraphernalia Wagon, which terrified many kids back when it was first released. One noteworthy difference was Jack and Oogie built the tunnel and Jack eventually came to his senses once Oogie attempted to murder the kids, while The Grinch had no consequence for what he did.

Dedicated to William Hickey (died 1997), who voiced Dr. Finkelstein in the original film.